fuffie

If you are getting your patients to the floor within 15- 30 mins after getting orders, I want to come work there!! Seriously though, if the patient is getting to an inpatient bed that quickly then there is no reason to start adm orders. If a patient is in the ED as a hold for several hours we need to do all we can do to keep the patient comfortable, if that means hydrating them, treating their pain, nausea and feeding them thaen thats wha we need to do. The bottom line is patient care.

Your facility should have a written exposure protocol. I have had exposures and typically, there are baseline labs done, MD can request testing of pt for Hep and HIV you should be counselled abt PEP(post exposure prophylaxsis) if pt is righ risk,ie has history of IV drug use, high risk behaviors. Usual follow up is 3 mos, 6 mos and 1 year. Document exposure through incident report. It concerns me that this information was not a part of new employee orientation and that those that should have the info didn't. It also concerns me that employee health had such a blase' attitude about it.