kdneal

Thank you both for the info! I had found more detail on the neuroptics site last week-not sure how I missed it the first time. Thanks again!

Does anyone have a guideline that they could share for using the neuroptics pupillometer? I do not have any experience with the equipment and would like to know what others do regarding frequency of use, when to call MD, etc. Any info would be appreciated!

I would definitely say NICU. NICU will obviously give you the critical care knowledge, you will have similar patient to nurse ratios, you will know vents, sedation drips, pressors, central lines, chest tubes, on and on. All of that knowledge will easily transfer to the PICU. We have had multiple peds floor nurses transfer to PICU and it was extremely challenging for them even though they were fabulous peds nurses. Maybe you could even meet with the PICU manager and ask for feedback as to what she thinks the best avenue would be. Good luck!

We currently use penlights to assess pupil size and reactivity in our ICU as well but since that can be affected by the brightness (battery strength), the lighting in the room, etc. we are looking in to using a pupillometer. Add to that the challenges of assessing pupils in patients with dark eyes , patients that are sedated, etc., it can become difficult to tell for sure. The pupillometer would take the subjectivity out of our assessments. The pupillometer also gives a NPi (neurological pupil index) reading which is trended over time and detects subtle changes in pupillary responsiveness and increasing ICP. The machines are fairly cheap. Thanks for replying!

Does anyone have a guideline that they could share for using a pupillometer? I do not have any experience with the equipment and would like to know what others do regarding frequency of use, when to call MD, etc. Any info would be appreciated!