Stethoscope covers!

My tubing stayed in better shape when I used one of the covers.

They're not that difficult to make either...I dissected one & figured out how to make them out of my choice of material for less $$$...

My husband (also an RN) now has one made of woodland camoflage! :)

Our Infection Control did away with them as well.....at the same time they mandated that all artificial nails come off. Of course, I still see nurses running around with the fake nails. A few are travelers but there are plenty of core staff with them too.

Not worth the infection risk. Forgo these "cute" things for your health's sake that that of your patients.

I like the fact that I can swab my whole steth with alcohol between each patient, and it would be a little hard to wash the cloth cover between rooms. :chuckle My nursing instructor pointed out another potential "complication" when using covers as students: the cloth rubbing on the tubing is just one more peripheral noise that us novices need to filter out while learning auscultation. She recommended that if we do get covers that we don't use them for at least the first term so we'll have a better chance at hearing heart/lung/bowel sounds.

Our facility's IC department said they were bad news too. I have heard that there are some that have some sort of microbe resistant fabric -- however, these have been banned too -- not enough research yet.

My parents gave me a steth cover one day and I loved it...but my facility banned personal steths and we must use the ones they provide (due to theft of so many of them and employees compaining so much). So I never used it...

But a funny story about steth accessories! One day my sweet dear hubby (who is a paramedic) gave me a seth diaphram cover...a fun printed diaphram that you put into the steth bell itself. Well...I didn't know what it was, and read the oddly shaped package that read "printed diaphram" and did a double take! "hmmmm I don't use diaphrams..what the heck..and this is too thin anyway!!!???". LOL, I died of embarasment when I he told me "silly, it is for your STETH!!!!!!" LOL!!!!! DOH NURSIE!

Guess I went a bit Freud there that day...LOL! I still laugh about it!!!!!

Hi

I don't use a cover as you described, tho I've seen them. We have no policy--probably because I really don't see them used by other RN's where I work.

However, I have some round, sticky covers for the diaphram & you take it off after each patient. We used them at the Home Health Agency I used to work for. I prefered just cleaning mine between patient's. I used either alcohol or cavicide to clean it.

Mary Ann

The worst steth cover I have seen was one that was netlike that covered the whole stethopscope as well as the BELL. Yuk. no way is this cover being cleaned between each patient. I like to swab the bell of my stethoscope with an alcohol swab in front of the patient for their comfort and my peace of mind that I'm not passing something on from one pt. to the next.

Well here is a cool website for those who choose to and are allowed to use covers:

http://www.coziecorner.com

I have one on my stethoscope...I change it every shift and just toss the old one in the washing machine with my scrubs. To me, if they are washed regularly, they shouldn't pose much more of a risk than anything else we use for multiple patients. Also, how many of us really wipe our stet with alcohol between every patient? If the patient is known to be infectious, is on isolation, or has a lot of drainage etc, I take the cover off before I use it...

It is much cheaper to use the covers than to replace the tubing when it gets hard and cracked due to persipiration etc and I am too short to stick it in my pocket...