PCA pumps and basal rates

[wcsmith1]

For our MedSurg 1 final, we were given a blueprint...awesome! One of the items includes "PCA pumps and basal rates, amount every hour and shift total". I'm well aware of what a PCA pump is, but not necessarily nursing implications/priorities that are associated with them as well as basal rates, etc. This wasn't reviewed in the semester which I'm used to by now....ok, fine. I have tried looking up on my own within our text as well as google and the many other books I have. I think I'm not searching with the right words or maybe I'm just going cross-eyed at this point in the semester.

Could someone point me in the right direction?

[203bravo, MSN, APRN]

Not exactly sure of your question here --- the basal rate on a PCA pump is a preset amount of medication that is to be infused regardless of if the patient is pressing the demand button.. Then you add the demand dose (how many mg/press, how many min between presses, lockout dose)

The specific nursing implications would be the same as giving any patient an opioid. What would you evaluate prior to and after administering an opioid to a patient? Would you evaluate and reevaluate a patient on a PCA pump more or less often? Why?

As far as documenting the amount of the medication that patient has received either hourly or end of shift.. take the mg/hr that the basal rate is set for and multiply the number of hours,, take the amount of medication that is infused when the demand button is pressed multiply by the number of presses,, add these two numbers together.