Only 1 Oxygen/Vacuum outlet in semi-private rooms

[abbaking]

My facility is an older hospital. We have 2 and 3 bed rooms. I floated to a med/surg unit the other night and was kinda shocked at what I saw.

There was only one oxygen/suction outlet per room.

The oxygen flowmeters were attached to an oxygen coupler (Y shaped device allowing 2 flowmeters to be used). Same thing with the vacuum regulators.

Anyone ever see this before?

[AgentBeast, MSN, RN]

Yeah I've seen that before. A lot of the older hospitals are configured that way.

[BluegrassRN]

All of our rooms only have one outlet. In the double rooms, there are dual flowmeters. So, one flowmeter for each patient.

I've attended or taught clinicals in many area hospitals, and in all the double rooms, this has been the set up.

[GreyGull]

Most of our semi-private rooms have only one O2 and vacuum outlet. Y connectors are used.

A couple of our ICUs are also older with limited O2 outlets so a rail system is used along with Y connectors. Where Ys don't fit very well, we have single combination flowmeters which have a 50 psi connection for ventilator, regular flowmeter and a flow connection with a quick release for a BVM. Of course, the water outlet has to be able to take the weight.

Of course there are still many SNFs and Subacutes that still depend on H tanks.

[elkpark]

I've worked in med-surg in older hospital buildings that had no O2 or suction in the walls at all -- if someone was on O2, you wheeled in the green tank and set it up next to the bed; if someone was on suction, you brought in a Gomko machine and set it up on the bedside table ... It's a pain if you're used to a more modern, higher-tech setting, but it's do-able. As long as you're got the portable equipment available, no biggie ...

[K+MgSO4, BSN]

I've worked in 4 bed rooms where there was only 02 and suction on one side of the room, if someone needed O2 on the other side we either swapped beds or brought in the crash trolley in an emergency to access the portable suction and O2.

This was the older part of the hospital where there is probably asbestos in the walls so they are not going to be drilling for O2 and suction access any time soon! You get used to the quirks of different wards and hospitals.

[GreyGull]

I've been in newer hospitals where the design was so flawed it didn't matter how many outlets there were. They were either unreachable or placed where they were unusable or at least not to be used easily. Example would be the suction placed below the O2 outlet where you could barely get a NC hooked up and a humidifier for either the NC or a trach collar was out of the question. Also, all the O2, suction and electrical outlets were behind where you were going to park large pieces of equipment thus blocking access. All the electrical outlets were generally on the opposite side of the room from where you needed the IV pumps to be.