There are home care pts I've been shying away from because they're on home infusion pumps. Most of them I've never even heard of. I got sent to a class today at in infusion company. There were 11 of us, all in home care. We went around the room to introduce ourselves.
Specializes in SICU, EMS, Home Health, School Nursing.
Nope. One could crawl across my foot and I wouldn't know what it is. I'm an old ER nurse.....my way of treating wounds was to wrap 'em and ship 'em! Now I've gotta know when to use duoderm, when to suggest a wound vac, how to measure tunneling, etc.
I always measured tunneling by using one of those sterile q-tips on a long wood stick and I would put the q-tip into the wound and my fingers right at where the q-tip and the surface of the skin is and then pull the q-tip out (still with my fingers in the same spot) measure the distance from the tip of the q-tip to where my fingers are. (I have no idea if that made any sense... Oh and about the duoderms... we use a lot of different types of allevyn dressings where I work and I think those are pretty similar to duoderms.
Speaking of tunneling wounds, I had a patient with 2 nasty looking ones the other day and I had to do sterile wet to dry dressing changes. I hate doing those!!! I managed to spill saline all over the floor...lol The PCA (patient care assistant) that was helping me was laughing and he was like "well that was actually one of the better dressing changes I have seen" makes me wonder how bad the other ones must have been...
Probably a CADD; the infusion companies send a fanny pack or backpack (depending on the size of the bag infusing) so pts can get out of the house.
Now all I need is a class on wound care. I've never even seen a wound VAC, I wouldn't know what it was if it slapped me upside the head!
Tazzi,
I went to a woundvac class and it was great. It was a lecture about skin breakdowns, staging pressure ulcers, treatment for different stages etc. Then there was a hands on part where we go to play with the machines - even practiced putting dressings on each other. It was neat to feel the suction.
Beth, you've been here long enough and been an aide long enough to know that "only" is not a word that is synonymous with "aide"......people who are "only" aides have saved my little hiney.....well, not so little but you get my drift......too many times for me to say "They're only aides."
Specializes in ER, ICU, Infusion, peds, informatics.
that patient ain't gonna be on my assignment list.........
they actually arn't that tough of a patient :) .
medicare has some pretty strict guidelines -- have to show improvment in cardiac numbers, either per cath or via swan numbers -- from the dobutamine. once that is documented, the patient goes home on a set rate.
they have to be weighed weekly, but otherwise are pretty similar to any other infusion patient (other than that you will have them for quite a while).
some hospices will do them, too (for comfort). ours does. they don't have to prove the increase in cardiac output and/or ejection fraction like the medicare patients do, so they are a bit easier to start.
they are pretty much a combination of an infusion patient and a chf patient, as far as teaching/monitoring goes.
Tazzi, I know you're an RN and I'm only an aide but.....those wound vacs freak me out! Buttons, tubing, is it full, alarms galore.
First of all. I agree with Tazzi, Bethin, our profession (at least in my opinion) CAN NOT do without nurse aides!!
Tazzi---Wound vacs aren't that bad once you see one changed/placed. They scared me too, :sofahider at first, but after one of our nurses showed me how to do it, I was fine. It was "see one, do one, teach one".
Not afraid of the wound vac, I can't kill anyone with that. Pumps can be scary....not the pump itself, but what's running through them. I remember the early pumps when it was easy to accidentally bolus a pt because there was no failsafe asking "Are you sure (you want to do this)?"
EmmaG, RN
2,999 Posts
Oh sorry... like I said, can't sleep, brain numb.
Glad to hear your class went well--- and like she said, wound vacs are fun