peritoneal dialysis pts in hospital

[chatty-rn]

When a peritoneal dialysis patient is in the hospital who is responsible to set them up and connect them? We are a hospital based unit with only a couple of PD patients. The med-surg units are saying that they have too many new grads to have them learn how, so dialysis nurse now has to go in and set up cycler and connect the patient.Even if patient is alert and capable of doing it themselves. But, here's the kicker, the floor nurses can disconnect. Can anyone let me know how you do it at your hospitals. Since I'm the PD nurse I'm hoping to be allowed to go to the next meeting regarding this and have some info. (wasn't invited to the first one- go figure) thanks

[anai1014]

i am on my 1st year and 4 months in renal nursing. we do have pd patients and what we do in our hospital is to set up the machines but that depends on how the patient would cope. if they do usually do everything at home then we will only provide them with the fluids and ,aterials and they would set it up themselves. but most of the time, its us,nurses who are bound to do everything for them since they are in the hospital.

thanks:)

[SCNuttyMeg]

This week I had my first PD patient. I have never had any clincal training on these machines when I was in college or nor in the hosptial setting. This was the first time I had seen the machine etc. This patient had been on our floor since october so some of the other nurses had learned how to work the machine etc. Luckily the patient was young and able to work us through the hooking and unhooking process. She actually had the same machine we used at home. I was up front and honest in making her aware I had never done this and she was mroe than happy to work me through the steps. We have a floor dedicated to renal but of course when they have open heart surgery they get places on a cardiac unit. It actually wasnt that hard except filling out the sheet. If they come to us we the nurses take care of the PD.

[veegeern, BSN, RN]

On my Internal Medicine unit, the dialysis nurse connects and disconnects the patient from the manifold or (patient's own) cycler. We floor nurses are responsible for hanging, dropping, and weighing bags. We record color, patient's tolerance, and weights. If the patient uses the cycler, then either the dialysis nurse is responsible for everything, or the MD writes orders for the patient and family to take care of everything.