I had patient B, another nurse had patient A. Our tech sucks so I answered a call light (as she sat there doing nothing) that had been going off for 10 minutes. When I go in patient B's visitor tells me patient A's IV pump alarm was going off so she silenced it. I told her not to do it again and checked on patient A. He was very upset, asking if she was authorized to touch pumps, did she do anything she shouldn't have. I assured him no harm came from touching her pump.
15 minutes later he called saying how uncomfortable he was, wanted his wife called. We ended up calling security, patient A was moved to a private room, doctors called, and the visitor was asked to leave and banned for the night. I even had to write a statement.
The next day the visitor told the RN that she was sorry and she didn't mean any harm. She has "medical training" which is never good. They always think they know best.
I at first didn't think it was a big deal but I do get that there are a lot of what ifs. What if she turned it off instead of silencing it, what if it was a critical drip, and so on.
On a side note, earlier this summer my mother was hospitalized (not my facility) & I happened to be there when her fluids were running low. The alarm went off & we used the call light. A CNA came in, silenced it, & added more volume to be infused! I was completely shocked. The alarm went off again & a 2nd CNA silenced it. A third time, the 1st CNA silenced it again, adding a little more volume. CNAs are written up for that type of thing where I work. I don't have as much issue with it being silenced once as long as the RN follows up to check it, but no one but the nurse should be adjusting the settings!
Nobody but an RN is allowed to touch the pumps in our hospital. We can not even silence them.
For the most part, no one--patient or visitor--should be messing with anyone else's pump. I do think there should be some leeway for silencing your own or a family member's pump--with one BIG proviso. The call light should immediately be pushed and staff notified that the alarm is beeping. Lather, rinse, and repeat until someone comes in and takes care of business.
Newer pumps have a lovely feature that can actually notify the nurse on a zone phone when the alarm goes off. Older ones (the majority) rely solely on medical staff hearing the beeping or having someone in the room push the call light to tell them the pump is going off.
I'm not sure visitors (or other patients) understand that we can't always hear the beeping over the hallway noise, the phones, the chatter and TV noise from the rooms, and the general hubbub in our own heads. If the door is closed, I can just about guarantee that the average alarm doesn't stand a chance of registering. We need to make it clear that if someone is disturbed by the sound of an alarm, the best thing they can do is use the call light or come out into the hallway to let someone know it's going off.
On our end, even if it's not our patient, there should be a priority placed on silencing an alarm and making certain that the correct nurse is notifed.
Maybe there should be an addition to the room orientation that actually says, "All patient devices, including IV pumps, are off-limits and should not be touched by anyone other than staff members. If an alarm goes off and you are concerned, please, push the call light and let us know, so we can take care of it."
A while back, while I was treated with IV antibiotics after an iatrogenic intestinal perforation, my IV pump would regularly act up and sound the alarm (often because the tubing would become occluded from slight kinks), and, rather than listening to the interminable beeping (yes, understaffing), I called the nurse and silenced the alarm. No one ever told me not to. Perhaps the nurse thought a tech came by and shut off the alarm.
Me too. When they told me not to touch it I told them I'm not listening to the stupid thing for more than 15 minutes if I call and they don't come. Meanwhile the whole time it's beeping my elderly slightly demented roommate is screaming at me "SHUT THAT @!#$ thing off!" like I have something to do with it. Yes, I was a bad bad patient. I reviewed my chart at a later date and was surprised there were no detailed notes or CYA notes about what a bad patient I was.
If it were up to me I would allow certain patients to push their own silence buttons or restart buttons. Lucky for patient safety it's not up to me, lol. You usually only have to tell them once not to touch the equipment. However I didn't know there was a lock on the pump until last week. I need to learn how to use it in all my spare time because yes there are family members and patients who will mess with their own stuff when you can't get to it within 5 minutes.
Reminds me if a time long ago in my externship where a family member with "medical training" adjusted the pump to run in quicker because "mom's dehydrated and it's not going quick enough"
Except it was k+
Caught within 5 minutes,
No harm, but she had a lesson on lethal injections
A little knowledge can be dangerous...
What the.....what a kook! My customer service would not have been very good at that point!
Oh I do so enjoy the hospitalist who comes around and if the pump beeps while she's in there she just shuts it off completely and doesn't say anything to you about it. Please, do ask me about the vanc trough level the next time it's drawn.
We'll let our parents silence the alarm IF they call us when they do. But touching someone else's? Oh H to the NO.
I am definitely guilty of silencing my OWN alarm and then calling to let the nurse know it had gone off and I hit the silence button. I can't imagine touching someone else's. Nobody ever seemed to mind that I did this, sometimes they couldn't get in there right away because they had something much more acute to deal with elsewhere.
I recently told the mom of a 6 day old in the ER that she could hit the silence button, and showed her where it was, but told her to make sure she hit the call light to let us know. It was important for the 24g IV to not blow, hence keeping it at TKO, but it was also important for the mom and the baby to get some rest.
On the other hand when working in the trauma ICU there was a family who extubated their loved one cause they thought the ETT was choking them and they couldn't breathe. Sigh. Pt ended up dying cause they couldn't get them reintubated or trached. Very sad. This is why I would always tell the family not to touch anything. But with the long term patients the familys did get really good at helping us out and being part of the team.
Oh I do so enjoy the hospitalist who comes around and if the pump beeps while she's in there she just shuts it off completely and doesn't say anything to you about it. Please, do ask me about the vanc trough level the next time it's drawn.
I've also had this occur with physicians who come in to see me and as soon as they've left the room I've reported to the nurse that the pump was shot off by the physician due to alarming, so that nurse knows and can restart it.
Apparently, NOBODY really likes to listen to the alarm.
Once had a family member of pt A silence pt Bs vent alarm. This visitor was told do it again and your out. Guess what- he did it again. The guy was a real jerk. Even turned off the poor womens tv
When I started as a new nurse and work at the hospital this is when I noticed that this was an issue. A patient actually would change the settings of his IV fluids to run faster when I confronted him he decided that he did not like me anymore and fired me as his nurse at no point after reporting it to the unit manager was I told good job. Hello my license is on the line.all I was told was he's a frequent flyer he does this so why was it ok for him to even be firing me for something he could cause more trama to himself versus having him sign a waiver giving him warnings or telling him if he continues you be discharged for noncompliance...
What the.....what a kook! My customer service would not have been very good at that point!
tothepointeLVN, LVN
2,246 Posts
Words cannot describe how livid I would have been either as the patient or the nurse.