LilyBelleD

It does not matter!!!! The tubing volume would be more critical if it did! You might want to point out to her the difference may be more in the "cost" of the 250 ml bag over the 100 ml bag since you are Not infusing all the bag anyway. It is to "prime" the tubing and a small post flush of the tubing at most. If you are concerned that the NS may not be clamped off while running the blood, or that you are hooking up the NS and Blood tubing before even going to get the blood and it is not on an infusion pump, it might be a concern, but on a well regulated flow for a bag used just to prime tubing for the blood, it is totally irrelevant! The volume of fluid required to "prime" the tubing is the same whether it is a 250 ml bag or a 100 ml bag!!!

Having been a Home Health Nurse for over 28 years, I can tell you, yes!!!! I have not dealt a lot with Assisted Living Facility patients in recent years, since I have been in Pediatrics for over 16 years, but even there, I have had to go way "above and beyond" what many would consider the normal just to be sure a child got what they needed in care and were safe in home!!! It is the difference in Home Health Care from Hospital Care (where it feels like everything is right there and the chance for something to not get done seems so much less). Before working in Home Care I spent 15 years in Hospital Nursing, and the other big difference was that on "most days" I went home and never worried because my patients were in the hands of another Nurse! In Home Health Care, they still feel like they are in my care even once I get home, to the point that I have had to, on occasion, do follow up calls over the evening to be sure the child was still responding as I expected! I have also had to do instructions of very complicated "procedures" to non-medical Parents who live out of State from where our Home Care is located to set up equipment to deliver everything from IV Fluids to TPN and IL to Feeding pumps that the parent was only able to tell me what the machines "screen" looked like when I have been "on call". So, it is most definitely a whole different world!!!!