Staying in the room with a COVID patient

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Hi everyone,

I'm curious as to what other facilities are doing. The nurses are staying in the ICU rooms for the duration of the shift. We have runners that bring things to you. These rooms are negative pressure and the patients are vented. There's a computer so you're 10-15 ft from the patient. Is this safe practice?

You're wearing N95, face mask, face shield, gowns, booties.

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We have CAPR helmets, gowns gloves and are treating it like TB except we are out of negative pressure rooms. The whole unit is being converted to negative pressure and we'll be geared up the entire shift. This is in a MICU. I'm interested in what everyone else is doing. If you have 12hrs continuous contact exposure are you guys doing bunny suits? Is the hospital providing scrubs and place to shower?

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Yes they're providing scrubs, no bunny suits.

Does a CAPR helmet take in the air in the room and gives it to you to cool you? or am I misunderstanding? does it have a filter?

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We no longer have negative air flow rooms and have more than 1 COVID patient. It’s not possible to stay in a room all shift.

Plus, the N95 mask would smother me to wear for 12 hours!! I’m barely able to go 2 hours without needing a breather.

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It takes the air in through the room. It runs it through a hepa filter and gives you a cool breeze. It's suppose to be equivalent to n95 and with fan on low almost makes it through a full shift. It's actually not to inconvenient. We coded a covid patient wearing them and could still breath normally. They're expensive but seem worth it. It sounds like what you guys are doing is safe practice but resource (staff) intensive. Is it to save ppe? We're trying to find out if the 12hr exposure is unsafe without a hazmat/bunny suit but infectious disease says its safe. I'm still wondering the same thing as you because 12hrs in the room is quite a bit and I guess we're still finding out.

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28 minutes ago, DougFreshness said:

It takes the air in through the room. It runs it through a hepa filter and gives you a cool breeze. It's suppose to be equivalent to n95 and with fan on low almost makes it through a full shift. It's actually not to inconvenient. We coded a covid patient wearing them and could still breath normally. They're expensive but seem worth it. It sounds like what you guys are doing is safe practice but resource (staff) intensive. Is it to save ppe? We're trying to find out if the 12hr exposure is unsafe without a hazmat/bunny suit but infectious disease says its safe. I'm still wondering the same thing as you because 12hrs in the room is quite a bit and I guess we're still finding out.

Did they survive?

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Specializes in CICU, Telemetry.

I'd KILL for the early days when we were 1:1 in the room with our first COVID+ patients. We now have 3-4 intubated, proned patients in the COVID ICU and it's absolutely the least safe nursing experience I've ever had. I'd wear an N95 for 12 hours any day of the week to go back to 1:1 in my patient's room. Hands down.

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18 hours ago, NurseBlaq said:

Did they survive?

He survived but meaningful recovery looks grim. Are you guys wearing the same n95s the whole shift? I wouldn't be able to breathe! CCU RN- do you guys use specialty beds or manually proning them? Has it been effective?

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That's sad to code someone knowing they still have a slight chance of survival. Nurses nationwide are going to have PTSD when this is all over. We're used to seeing sickness and death but not on this scale, and especially when it's our coworkers and loved ones in such a short time span and clustered.

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They've changed the policy. Just put everyone on restraint and minimize going in and out the room.

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Specializes in Cardiology.

So far my facility has I think 12 covid + pts and we really have never gone over 20 at one time. This is of course split between the PCU and MICU where the PCU has the majority (where I work). What my hospital did was install video monitors in every room, converted every room into a negative pressure room, and we now have extension IV tubing so all IV pumps are outside of the room. My manager and the MDs want to limit our exposure as much as possible so they are working with pharmacy to group and time meds appropriately.

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Specializes in CICU, Telemetry.

Doug we're legit manually proning them. Mind you last night was the first patient I proned who didn't weigh over 120kg. Proning does seem to be the most helpful thing we've done with the ICU COVIDs to actually improve oxygenation and survival in any meaningful way. I now hear that they're encouraging med/surg and non-intubated patients to basically prone themselves in bed which was weird to hear but is kind of cool and new to think about, for me anyway.

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