Sterile Water for Enteral Feeding Tubes?

[med_geek]

Hi all, I have a question about what type of water you use for flushing and administering meds via NG/OG tubes. At the ICU in the hospital I am currently at, we are required to use sterile water ONLY. However, the rest of the hospital uses regular tap water. The theory is that critical care patients are often immunocompromised and so have a higher risk of acquiring an infection from tap water than other patients. I find it much easier to dissolve crushed meds in warm water (which is impossible when using sterile water). I have been looking into nursing journals for research, but I was curious as to what you do on your units.

Thank you in advance!

[Nalon1 RN/EMT-P, BSN, RN]

If you have issues with the tap water, your facility needs to fix that. The gut is not sterile, no need to use sterile water IMO.

I could maybe see it in a neutropenic patient, maybe.

[/username, BSN, RN]

My facility does this as well. I've been told it has to do with a few infections years ago that were thought to come from the tap water, but nobody was sure, but they went to sterile water only anyways.

[Trauma_drama14, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN, NP]

Weird but I can see their point in using it. In my floor, we use tap water to flush OG/NG tubes

[PennyS]

We only use sterile water in our immunocompromised population or if the parents request it. Otherwise, tap water.

[NurseRed16]

We use sterile water at all levels of care in our hospital. I've often wondered why, but never really looked into it.

[offlabel]

Holy cow...if someone's concerned the patient won't tolerate tap water, they got bigger problems than the tap water!

[offlabel]

NurseRed16 said:

We use sterile water at all levels of care in our hospital. I've often wondered why, but never really looked into it.

Maybe a hot sterile water rep?

[NPOaftermidnight, MSN, RN, NP]

We use sterile H2O in all of our ICUs, but per our facility's policy tap water is fine. I have used tap water on occasion to help dissolve certain medications, but most seem to do just fine in room temp sterile water.

[AngelRN27]

Nalon1 RN/EMT-P said:

If you have issues with the tap water, your facility needs to fix that. The gut is not sterile, no need to use sterile water IMO.

I could maybe see it in a neutropenic patient, maybe.

^^^ This. The gut is not sterile, so I'm not sure how effective using sterile water for NG/OG tubes would be. Did those of you who use this method at your hospitals have some sort of evidence-based back up for this practice? It's uncommon for hospitals to install policies without some sort of foundation outside of either research, practice norms, or some sort of association recommendation (such as the CDC, for example).

[jouRNey8]

I've seen brown water come out of our taps before...going to stick with the sterile water for now.

[Bruce_Wayne, ASN, RN]

Sterile water seems pointless because the cup you pour it into isnot sterile and neither will the syringe or funnel, unless you're getting new sterile stuff every time.

I save my sterile water for chest tubes.