Your Favorite Nursing "Hack"

[canadianedmurse]

Wondering what everyone's favorite nursing hack or tip is in bedside nursing?

I think most of these things you do everyday and you don't realize until someone watches you or you are teaching a student and they go "No way, I've been doing xyz the whole time!". Lets see if you can share a trick of the trade.

[righteousjenn]

On 8/19/2019 at 7:22 PM, adventure_rn said:

I just thought of two more hacks that are helpful for patients with a ton of lines (i.e. ICU patients).

The first is related to line-wrangling. If I've got lines that are tugging or falling off the bed, I'll tie a tourniquet very loosely around them, then use a hemostat to clamp them to the bed linens. This also works really well when ambulating or transferring these patients (in my case, often getting them out of a crib for parents to hold). It's way easier to tie 10+ lines together with a tourniquet and move them as a collective whole then keeping track of 10+ individual lines. In my experience, this also makes the lines less likely to tug during the transfer.

The second is related to emergency push lines. In my ICU, each shift the nurses designate which IV site we'll use to push code drugs in an emergency (i.e. figuring out ahead of time while line doesn't have vasoactive drips). Here's the hack: whenever I've got a patient with really complicated lines, I'll put a small piece of brightly-colored tape on my 'push line' cap so I can quickly identify it in an emergency. It's also helpful so you can explain to others where the push line is (i.e. if you're handing off the patient before your lunch break).

I recently had a patient with a triple-lumen IJ, *two* double-lumen PICCs, a central art-line, and two PIVs; that's 10 separate vascular access points, including four seperate lumens that were running drips, and the a-line where you obviously wouldn't want to accidentally push some epi. This patient was likely to code at any given moment, and I made d*** sure that I had my push line clearly labeled so I could find it immediately if she were to code.

I make a light knot around them with a gauze.. keeps them in place and works good.. also I make sure to label ALL my lines.. it’s so annoying when you have so many drips and you have to spend an hour labeling and making sure they’re all compatible when it literally takes 5 seconds to label in the beginning...

also i second having a line Incase of emergencies.. I’ve been in some codes where there’s been a panic trying to figure out what’s going where... if I encounter this situation I will literally start removing lines.. in that moment t doesn’t matter what’s running thru them. I’m sure some nurses hate me for this.. but label your lines!!!!

[ruby_jane, BSN, RN]

These are amazing!