IV push meds

[CapeCodMermaid]

With the new Medicare regs that will penalize hospitals for patients who are re-admitted in 30 days of discharge for certain diseases...CHF being one of them, the push (no pun intended) will be on for Skilled facilities to do more and more. The director of Case Management at our local hospital said she is expecting that nurses in SNFs will be doing IV Lasix and IV solumedrol. Neither I nor my staff is happy about this. I'm pretty sure only RNs can do IV push and I've never worked in a facility that allowed nurses to do IV Lasix. Any thoughts from you all?

[thenightnurse456]

The U.S. Healthcare system truly is a broken mess.

[mikijam03lpn]

Update on IV push medications; In my facility we were able to push IV lasix 40mg x3 days and 20mg x3 days, then he was restarted on 40mg PO. The patient is doing well now, with a lot of improvement. I think we are one of the first facities in northern NJ that does this. We also gave solumedrol IV, epi IM and IV Benadryl to a patient with an bad allergic reaction, He ended up in ICU, but our prompt intervention save her life.