should we take this referral

[reddellrn]

our brand new branch manager who has no home health experience took a referral today for wound care with a wound vac. well none of the nurses at my home health have any knowledge of wound vacs. pt is going home tomorrow. i think she should give the referral to another hh. she is currently in the process of trying to find someone from another agency to come and help us learn a wound vac. but the nurses at my agency dont feel comfortable about seeing this patient. besides you have to be check off on this skill before you can see the patient. i dont know what she is thinking:(

[caliotter3]

Boy I can see you're going to have your hands full just dealing with this branch manager. Is she an RN or one of those business types with no nursing background? If she is an RN, then it looks as if she will be handling the patient by herself until she can get someone else who is qualified. Even without hh experience I would think that an RN would have enough sense not to take on business that your agency obviously can't handle. Somebody needs to have a down to earth talk with her before she brings about negative changes at the agency. It is bad business to take on what you can't handle. It will build a bad reputation for the agency with clients and employees alike and will ultimately tear down the business.

[iluvivt, BSN, RN]

Years ago when these first became popular the maker of the wound vac (KCI in my case) met me at the pts house and gave me my own private inservice. You can call the company and they will send out their educator to give you an inservice and then as pts come onto to service they can meet you in the field. They can not just throw you out there without some training.......THIS is not FAIR to the nurses or the patient.

[annaedRN, RN]

I agree with iluvivt. Even after you are trained, the KCI rep can meet with you if you have a problem wound to offer suggestions. It often takes more than just one meeting to be able to do the VAC dressings correctly; it takes quite a bit of practice. Please have an inservice with KCI before taking any wound VAC patients.

[lpnflorida]

I love the KCI rep who come when we request. They also gave us a CD; which we can use when it has been awhile since a nurse has worked with a wound vac and just needs to brush up on the principles and such. I love wound vacs. They actually only look much more intimating than they really are. Course, I do hate those areas which we have all incurred which seem to get a leak requiring additional patches or the removal and starting from scratch. And why does it always seem to happen when we don;t have the extra kits in the patients room. Rule one I think should be have two kits available at all times on the just in case. lol