janetrn

melliejh, thanks for the reply. Any info is helpful. I pretty much feel we are the only ones doing this, as one of our docs means well but is an expert on finding a back door to get kids in and is not fond of intensive care. As an FYI alot of our vented kids are in right now for failed home care (ie no homecare nurses to be found) It's the sick ones that scare me, because not all our staff is vent trained so backup is not always as readily availble as you would like. Thnaks again! Janet

Hello. I'm a nurse with 11yrs of peds experience. I am sitting on a committe to form criteria for what vents may be admitted to the med/surg areas of our hospital. I would love to know if anyone one else has a policy about vents on a peds floor. I would love any written info as well. As it stands now we are admitting trached pts, who are not on CPAP at home, who get sick and place on CPAP/BiPAP. Or CPAP kids to vent with a rate. Do you have CO2 requirements? Amount of supplamental O2 requirements. We are not a step down unit and were originally vent trained to handle chronically vented children. Does anywhere else even take chronic vented children onto their med/surg floors? HELP I want to know what other places are doing and why. It seems as though only 2 of us on the committe are concerned about the rising acuity of our pts. Our hospital is reasonable and any input I could supply about what the standard other hospitals have would be great. ------------------ janetrn