Thermometers- personal or shared?

[wee one rn]

Question for everyone- Does each of your babies have their own personal thermometer or are they shared between babies? Our kiddos have their own stethoscopes, but we still share themometers and this just doesn't seem right to me.

If you do have individual themometers, do you know where you get them from or how they are payed for?

Any info/comments would be helpful, thanks!

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

Every infant born in our hospital (NICU or regular nursery) gets a pack with a t-shirt, blanket, pack of diapers, thermometer and bulb syringe. We have been known to share stethescopes and sometimes thermometers between cobedded twins but only if they are cobedded.

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

We used to have shared thermometers, but now we have individual digital ones for each baby. They are part of the admission kit, and they are charged to the baby's bill. The parents take the thermometer home with them at discharge.

We use our own stethescopes, though. Alcohol them off before and after each patient. If they are in isolation, they have one of the cheap plastic isolation scopes that you can throw away.

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

On our unit, each pt has own stethoscope and most have their own thermometer. For some babies, we have to use the rolling thermometers with probe covers. Not sure where we get ours though.

[Mimi2RN, ASN, RN]

We use the cheapie digital thermometers, each baby has one (and sometimes two or three). If baby has been admitted to the floor, one is in the admit kit for newborns. If they are a direct NICU admit, we have our own stock.

Most of us have our own Littman stethoscopes, but we also have some basic neonatal ones on the unit.

[KRVRN, BSN, RN]

We share thermometers and use our own stethoscopes. We have digital thermometers we can charge to the pt but we rarely use them because they take a long time to read and they tend to read low. We generally only use them for MRSA pts. (and a MRSA pt will have his own stethoscope)

[cocco]

We have our own stethescopes and we use the rolling thermometers with probe covers. We do keep the probe covers attached to the isolette and reuse them on the same baby.

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

We have individual. They are crap. The temps take forever and are sometimes off if the battery is getting low.

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

We have our own stethescopes and we use the rolling thermometers with probe covers. We do keep the probe covers attached to the isolette and reuse them on the same baby.

That's what we used to do. Even though it wasn't as "clean" as each baby having their own, and it was annoying waiting for a thermometer sometimes...I have to say, they were much better tools! They were soooooo fast! Like five seconds, maybe. These take FOREVER, like a minute or more, and most of the babies don't tolerate it well. The little ones desat from the discomfort of having a pointy probe in their armpit, and the big ones scream because they're hungry and don't want to wait any longer to eat!