jgeorgern4

jgeorgern4's Latest Activity

1. 

   How often do you culture a patient?

   jgeorgern4 posted a topic in Nursing

   Is anyone aware of any evidence based or national standards as to the frequency of blood cultures? We culture every 24 hours for a temp greater than 101.5, but as far as I can find out there is no evidence for this. Some of our patients end up cultured many many times, which is hard on the patients and expensive. I'm bringing it up with our docs and the ID docs but so far no one wants to take a stand and write a policy. Help us!!!
2. 

   Evidence based blood culture standards?

   jgeorgern4 posted a topic in MICU

   Is anyone aware of any evidence based or national standards as to the frequency of blood cultures? We culture every 24 hours for a temp greater than 101.5, but as far as I can find out there is no evidence for this. Some of our patients end up cultured every day for weeks, which is hard on the patients and expensive.
3. 

   Alaris pump volume issue?

   jgeorgern4 replied to jgeorgern4's topic in MICU

   No, the tubing is all primed. I ran my fluid into a graduate and measured it with a syringe when I was done. Clinical engineering in our hospital is supposed to testing them also. We didn't get new tubing when we converted from our Gemini pumps to these, and that may be the source of the issue.
4. 

   CCRN advice Need

   jgeorgern4 replied to tammyg652's topic in MICU

   I took the med-ed two day class and used their CD's as well which I thought were better than Laura Gasparis. I agree, toss the CCRN book and use the test CD. Bookmark what questions you miss and study those. You can do just a few questions at a time so the study sessions were much less painful. It was a effective technique for me, I passed the exam last summer.
5. 

   Alaris pump volume issue?

   jgeorgern4 posted a topic in MICU

   We recently got new Alaris pumps with Guardrails and it seems they consistently deliver 5 to 10 cc's less than is programmed. We use buretrols for many meds so it's obvious. Is anyone else seeing this? I actually tested some other tubings and got the same results. I'm having trouble getting heard so if anyone else is seeing this please let me know. You many send me a private message. Thanks, J
6. 

   Is anyone using the BIS in the ICU? Like it?

   jgeorgern4 posted a topic in MICU

   Is anybody using the BIS monitor on your sedated patients? A lot of our new nurses are oversedating or undersedating our patients and I wondered if the BIS would be useful. Our medicine patients can be intubated for weeks, then when we try to wake them up it can take a while. Seems like some folks like it and others don't. We did a trial in our unit but I never saw the results and the unit went away. Thanks, James