scanning breast milk

[amandamac4]

just curious how many NICU's arent scanning breastmilk prior to feeding it.

Thanks!

[babyNP., APRN]

I would hazard a guess to most of them. It's a fairly new technology in the world of NICUs. Most community hospitals won't have the budget for this kind of thing, but it is becoming more common. One community hospital in which I did per diem warmed up their milk using styrofoam cups- and this was only about 5 years back...

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

We have special barcode labels that the mothers are required to place on the bottles before handing them to us. We scan the barcode on the bottle prior to each feed and it is recorded in our eMAR.

[BeccaznRN, RN]

My facility is implementing barcode scanning of breast milk.

[Leader25, ASN, BSN, RN]

when the scanner actually works?

[KKEGS, MSN, RN]

I work as an agency RN in NICU and one facility I pick up at does scan and the one I pick up at the most doesn't but we've been hearing for years that "it's coming."

[vintage_RN, BSN, RN]

Our milk is prepared in a sterile prep room, 2 RNs co-sign on the flowsheet the administration of EBM

[Seattle_NICUnurse]

At least three major hospitals in Seattle are NOT scanning EMB before administration. Donor milk has a stricter protocol in the facility I work in (level IV NICU) than EBM. Donor milk is kept in a log with the batch/serial number and which baby it was given to. Once DBM is assigned, it goes straight to the infant's room for storage until it is consumed or expired. For EBM coming from the freezer, it is encouraged to have a second nurse check patient information but it isn't enforced or documented anywhere.

For EMB, once pumped, we do apply patient labels to each bag and then we have a pretty good storage system in our EBM freezer but I can say the system is not without error. We scan our meds, it would make sense to create bar codes for EBM as well. Looking forward to seeing what other's experience!

[treebreRN]

We are just beginning EBM scanning at our facility. We are a large, regional, level 4 NICU. This will replace our current two-nurse verification protocol.

[bananas1]

Wowww funny, we don't have any scanny thing, or eMAR (whatever that is!). We use two nurse 'sight' verification (not signing).

[slw326]

All of our moms must label bottles so we can scan them! Nurses get in serious trouble for feeding breastmilk without scanning.

[PeakRN]

We use barcode scanning in our NICUs (both level IV and newborn nursery/level II NICU), but do not use it in our ED (we do not frequently give donor milk).