saline flush ..Joint Commission

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Hello...At your facility are you allowed to stock saline flushes in an unlocked storage container in a patients room? Does the Joint Commission view these as a med or a medical device? I went on the JC site but could not find any information. Food & Drug site ... saline was under medical device...so why can't they be stocked in a pts room? Thank you for any help that is offered

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Specializes in Trauma Surgical ICU.

Several years back they could be but now they are treated like medication/medical device so they have to be locked away...Sorry I don't have a link for you :(

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

Where I work we just have a big bin of them on top of the med cart.

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Specializes in ICU.

nope, gotta remove them. Stupid.

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Specializes in Critical Care- Medical ICU.

On my unit we keep them stocked in each patient's room, in a basket above the sink where they are readily available. It is an ICU though, I don't know if that makes a difference? Most of the regular units I have been on you could only get a 10cc saline syringe from the Pyxis or smaller ones from a supply room.

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Specializes in Developmental Disabilites,.

We have them locked in the medroom. When JCAHO vists we are not even allowed to have them in our pocket. :uhoh3:

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We recently had a change in policy on them to where now we CAN leave them in the patient room.

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We did until our time for a visit from TJC came due. Now it's suddenly never been OK.

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We have them locked in the medroom. When JCAHO vists we are not even allowed to have them in our pocket. :uhoh3:

Ugh, that sucks. I've had to start carrying around flushes and alcohol pads in my pocket because we can't have them in our rooms anymore. You always find a need for them and getting in to the locked supply isn't always convenient!

But I'm glad the Joint Commission is cracking down on such a serious problem. First we're keeping saline flushes handy and before you know it we're engaging in illegal organ harvesting. It is a slippery slope.

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Specializes in Oncology.

We keep them on a counter in the patient's room. Most are in the med room and we restock the rooms from there. My unit doesn't do bar-code scanning, but they've done some trials of it and those units have had to scan the saline flushes as a med. Dreading. It.

We have a list of drugs we're allowed to keep in the rooms: saline flushes, artificial tears, cough drops, nose sprays, advair inhalers, nitroglycerin, etc.

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Specializes in Certified Med/Surg tele, and other stuff.

What a pain to scan flushes!

To answer your question...Nope, we can't keep them in the nurse servers. They are in the locked med room or in our pockets.

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Specializes in Holistic and Aesthetic Medicine.

I'm in ICU. Where I work, we have to keep them in the locked drawer in the room

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