question about pca pumps , used in home setting

Isabelle49 · Mar 6, 2012

Not sure if you are asking if the patient/family are capable of learning to reprogram a pac pump or that they would do so to increase dosage (abusively)? Does the pump not have a key/lock mechanism and is a password code required to change settings? It has been some time since I had a patient with a pca pump, and don't remember ever having to change settings (this was in recovery room).

AMN74 · Mar 6, 2012

Yeah, I'm not sure if you want to teach them to do it?? or if you are afraid they will learn. Our home health agency has two different kind of pumps, one with a key lock, so it can only be programmed when you have key inserted...NEVER leave the key with the family. And then there is one with a password that is required for programming, again, NEVER give the password to the patient. We then have a different pump for TPN/Hydration, they have to be programmed too and I have known our pharmacy to call the patient/cg (if they are capable) to reprogram the dosage or rate after the labs come back, but most of the time to avoid errors a nurse has to go out and reprogram these pumps too. We seldom teach the patient to program. If it's narcs that is in the pca the patient can't even change the fluids, has to be done by the nurse. If it's fluids or tpn we teach the patient/cg to become independent with the fluid bag changes and a small series of screens that they scroll through to check that things are the same and then hit run and it's all done until the next time the bag is due to be changed.