Is it a JP or is it a Blake?

I don't know since I am not a nurse but right now I have a JP drain it says Jackson-Pratt on it so there you go.

My understanding is that they are different brands of the same thing.

Jackson-Pratt is a brand name.

At our facility, most people refer to this as a JP:

The BLAKE Drains are white, radiopaque silicone drains with four channels along the sides with a solid core center. Their other components consist of a silicone hub, a silicone extension tubing and an adapter. The drains are available either 3/4 fluted (hub outside skin) or full fluted (hub inside skin) and with or without a trocar.

JP drain: The original suction drain. The drain itself is inside the body. It is made of Teflon and has multiple drainage holes. The drain is connected to clear plastic tubing which is usually sutured to the skin at the point it leaves the skin. The tubing connects to a bulb reservoir. The bulb, when squeezed empty, applies constant suction to the drain and pulls the fluid out of the body. The drain is removed when the excess fluid has stopped draining from the body. A JP drain may be used, for example, for abdominal or thoracic drainage. JP stands for Jackson-Pratt.

What sagarcia said is right to me. Now, a while back our cardiac surgeons would use a blake drain to the pleural space in their patients. When the nurses d/c's the chest tubes, the blake drain STAYED in and we attached a JP bulb to it!! Hah!! A combination of the two!! LOL Probably doesn't help much to clear it up. LOL ?

I'm also agreeing with sagarcia- we use both in our OR and they are two distinct animals. If you would look at a cross-section of the blake it looks a little like one of the cross logos on a "west coast chopper" tee shirt. The J-P, however is a round perforated tube or a rectangular perforated "ribbon" (Flat vs round J-P) Both attach to either the grenade bulb or a hemovac and the only way to tell which drain is in place is by seeing it outside the pt or reading the op-record. It really doesn't matter too much as far as the post op care goes.

JPs (Jackson-Pratts) are flat. Blakes are round. Most everybody requests a JP in the OR, and that's what most of us are used to---not sure where in the country they are used to using Blakes instead of JPs, but apparently some docs have trained with Blakes and are used to them. Where I last worked, we stocked both, but I can't recall anyone ever specifically requesting a Blake--they soon got used to JPs when they started working there. The Blakes just gathered dust.

Bulbs and after care are the same for each.

Never heard of a "round" JP drain.

Well, I'm on a cardiac surgery pcu, and they use blakes here.

And for the record, I've also seen the chest tubes hooked to the bulb, too.

Thanks for explaining!

Umm....if it looks like a grenade, it's a JP (Jackson Pratt). If it is round and flat with springs inside, it is a HemoVac (HV). Not sure about the blake.

I work on an IMCU floor. we get post open heart patients. we refer to them as Blakes.

alyca said:

Umm....if it looks like a grenade, it's a JP (Jackson Pratt). If it is round and flat with springs inside, it is a HemoVac (HV). Not sure about the blake.

NO. That is incorrect; sorry. In the case of a Jackson Pratt vs. a Blake, the reservoir is not what defines the drain--the drain itself (and whether it is flat or round) defines the drain.

The "grenade" is simply a bulb--a reservoir. Both a JP drain (flat) AND a Blake drain (round) can be connected to that bulb; commonly referred to as a "grenade" or "JP bulb." (I guess you could call it a "Blake" bulb if you were using a Blake drain, but no one I have ever known does.)

This may sound nitpicky, but it's important to chart accurately in the event, 6 years down the road, there was litigation surrounding the drain, and the manufacturers of the drain were named as defendants for, say, a defective product. It would be a real pain (and an expensive embarrassment to counsel) to backtrack and find out who supplied the hospital with Blakes at the time, serve them with subpoenas, take their depos, and then find out that the drain was, in fact, a Jackson Pratt--by a different manufacturer.

As an operating room nurse, if I open a Jackson-Pratt drain, I chart Jackson Pratt, and what size --7 mm. or 10 mm.--and, if it were a Blake, I'd chart that it was a Blake, and what size. I wouldn't guess, and I wouldn't expect anyone else on med-surg or ICU to guess--what I charted is what they received in their patient. Also, I have the packaging to refer to and charge appropriately (and send to purchasing for reorder/restocking purposes.)

Now, to make things even more complicated, there are Hemovacs--and then there are Reliavacs. They each come with their own drains and extension tubing, and the reservoirs look very similar. But they are a different animal than either JPs or Blakes. And, most people tend to use the terms "Hemovac" and "Reliavac" interchangeably. Indeed, both reservoirs have a spring inside--after you empty the reservoir, you squeeze it flat (like an accordion) to get the air out, then reseal it. Repeat the process when it fills with blood/fluid again. Again, for the same reasons I mentioned above, don't chart a Hemovac as a Reliavac if it's not (and vice versa)----you never know if litigation involving the product will surface 5 or 6 years down the road, and you don't want the wrong manufacturers/distributors named.

I have never seen Argyle chest tubes hooked to anything but a Pleurevac, which in turn went to suction.