Question for those who do frequent tube feedings

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I took care of my first patient the other night with a peg tube. He was admitted from a longterm care facility and the order was put into his med reconciliation the same way the order was written at his facility. The doctor chose to continue the tube feeding with the order written the same way his facility had it.

It was written like this: Jevity 1.2 @ 75cc/hr at all times with 30cc free h2o. How fast would you run the flush with an order written like this?

"Is 780 cc of water enough in a day? Its only 3 paper coffee cups...

sometimes not. so, free water via gravity."

Probablly is...Don't forget, the formula has water in it too..Usually somewhere around 200ml in each 250ml of formula. So they get all that water too. You can find this information somewhere on the Jevity package which can be useful if you want to check and see that your patient is getting enough fluids.

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Any input from the hospital dietician? :)

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Specializes in LTC, Medical, Telemetry.

Whoa Whoa Whoa

Flushes are just that; flushes. You don't run them over an hourly rate, you flush to gravity. You don't push a flush (too much PSI in a clogged tube can dislodge it), you open up your syringe and just pour in 30 cc and let it flow in with gravity.

You wouldn't clarify an order to flush and IV, asking "at what rate do you want me to push 5 ml NS flush?"

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What about putting water in with the feeding? I've seen people do this and always thought it almost defeated the purpose of a flush, but not necessarily the purpose of giving more water. Not talking about those times when the order says to add water directly to the feeding; talking about additional water.

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Specializes in LTC, Medical, Telemetry.
What about putting water in with the feeding? I've seen people do this and always thought it almost defeated the purpose of a flush, but not necessarily the purpose of giving more water. Not talking about those times when the order says to add water directly to the feeding; talking about additional water.

Don't do that.

That is lazy nursing and defeats the purpose of the flush entirely.:coollook:

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Don't do that.

That is lazy nursing and defeats the purpose of the flush entirely.:coollook:

I agree with you but I wanted to see what people have to say about it. Does everyone agree that it is only lazy nursing? Are there other ways of looking at it?

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