Scope of practice

[DST2RN]

Can a pulmonary care nurse run vents, or does it still have to be a R.T.? Or is up to that hospitals guidelines? Today at work the Physician ordered different vent settings via in house telephone and the R.T. was at lunch and so a pulmonary care nurse,from the respiratory department came down and made the changes. I mean no one said anything, heck the patients nurse said hey thanks for coming down!!

[ShayRN]

About ten years back my husband's cousin (a respiratory therapist) had to move when the hospital I worked at did away with all R.T.'s. They thought they would be saving money because after all a well trained RN can do everything an RT can, right? They found out the hard way that RT's are a valuable profession. Nurses cannot do it all.

But to answer yor question, yes a nurse that is properly trained to run vents can do so.

[time4meRN]

It's no different than any other equipment we use. As long as you have been trained and you know what to do than it's ok. I'm not sure how your relating it to scope of practice. Now if you come up with your own orders of what the settings should be and carry those out, you would be prescribing without a license, that would be out of the scope of practice in most states.

[nurse_mo1986]

I work in a smaller ICU. Here, we have R.T.'s but if they're not on the floor, I think nothing of managing my vent pts. We have mandatory vent training and updates, and we're expected to be able to do vents w/o R.T.

[wjf00]

RT is not nessasary per their scope of practice as a previous poster wrote. However, they are a very valueable member of the healthcare team. I personally think IRREPLACEABLE member of the healthcare team

I change vent settings and change out equipment up to my training while RT is at lunch if they are ok with it. Some RT want to do it themselves which is my preference, but everyone needs a lunch, so if they are short and want a break I do it.

RT is VERY needed, anytime I hear a manager talk about replacing them with RN's I protest. First off, RT's offer another professional to collaborate with and solve problems. Two minds are better than one and better yet, a professional with a set expertise adds much to the discussion. secondly, RN's get more money, so when management displaces RT, it is never 1:1 with an RN- ultimately this means more work for RN's.

I love RT and want to personally thank all of them who might be reading this post.