Assisted Living Nurses

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in psych,maternity, ltc, clinic.

Do you have Automatic Defibrilators in your facility? How many beds in your facility. I work in a small one (16 apartments) and we don't have one, but wondering if I should get one. What are others doing?

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

You would not believe the excuses I've heard from administrators when trying to get the various ALFs I've worked in to buy a defibrillator.

"Oh, there's too much liability---what if a caregiver makes a mistake?" (Like the machine will even operate when there's no shockable rhythm.)

"They're too expensive." (Ask for donations--that's what you've got all those business connections for!)

"You're the only one who could use it---what good is it when you're not here?" (Totally untrue: the staff who know CPR also have been trained on AEDs and probably know how to use one better than I do.)

"If we used it on a visitor, we could be sued." (Ever hear of the Good Samaritan rules? Now how about lawsuits for 'failure to rescue"?)

For some reason, the corporations that own and/or manage ALFs are scared spitless of having AEDs in their buildings. Frankly, I'm more scared of being sued for NOT having one with so many residents on full-code status..........but that's just me. Good luck to you, maybe you'll succeed where I've failed.

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I work in a big assisted living center. No, we have no kind of emergency equipment here-nothing at all.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Yeah.......we don't even have a crash cart of any kind. Twenty-two of our seventy residents are full codes, and the only equipment we have are CPR masks. And they wonder why I don't wanna do ALF nursing anymore........

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Sounds like you need to present to admin the reason why they need one. benefits, drawbacks of not having one, the good sameritan law, cost of different ones ect...maybe open thier eyes

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Specializes in Mostly: Occup Health; ER; Informatics.

Most states require a prescription from a physician licensed in your state to allow the purchase of an AED. Each state has their own laws (statutes) about this.

Buying an AED is just the beginning. You also need a standing order for using it, training, a maintenance policy, etc.

Here are two good overviews of all that: (I am not affiliated)

[
http://www.baesg.org/aed.pdf

:specs:

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