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Discussion

Palliative Bedside Fans

Does your facility allow fans at the bedside? If so, do you have a specific policy for infection control?

I'm a palliative care nurse & I'd like to be able to provide bedside fans for dyspnea that would either be thrown away or sent home with the pt upon discharge. My facility's infection control director is worried the fans would never be properly cleaned &, even if they were cleaned, would blow infections into wounds, lungs, or sterile sites & the hospital would be held responsible for the infection because we provided the fan, which makes sense; however she doesn't really understand the relief a fan can have on dyspnea & said we should just adjust the thermostat. When I specifically mentioned my palliative care/end-of-life patients she said her mom had been on palliative care for a year & wasn't end-of-life... When I said a doctor's order would be required to get a fan from SPD she said her brother is a doctor & she knows nurses ask doctors for orders walking down the hall so they could order fans for everybody. [emoji17]

I understand the infection control concerns, but I've also seen the comfort blowing air in someone's face can provide... Which may decrease medications and maybe decrease sedation which could improve quality of life. What are your thoughts/policies on fans for palliative care patients?

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    If someone is palliative I can't see what harm it would do. We provide fans for our palliative patients. It provides a lot of comfort.

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    If someone is palliative I can't see what harm it would do. We provide fans for our palliative patients. It provides a lot of comfort.

    Does your facility have a policy?

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    • Experts

    Not as far as I know.

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    There's not actually any reason to prohibit fans in general from an infection prevention standpoint, I'm a little surprised your IP director was that badly informed. There are relatively limited situations where fans could be unsafe or should not be used, such as where it would interfere with the flow of a laminar flow air hood (used for mixing meds or in the lab), or where it may direct air from an area under maintenance to an active patient care area, or where it would interfere with the negative airflow of a airborne isolation room. Out of laziness, some organizations just prefer to ban them all together to avoid having to define these rare limitations, which is unfortunate since they can be very valuable in patient care.

    Infection control considerations for box fans | OSHA Healthcare Advisor

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