I have always termed the lumens of a double lumen implanted port as medial and lateral. I work in outpatient infusion and the patients never know which lumen was last accessed. Sometimes the documentation will state left or right and no one knows if that is the nurses left/right or the patient's left/right. Currently, the EMR allows the nurse to choose lumen 1 and lumen 2 for documentation but that does not describe which is which and the documentation rarely is elaborate to ensure a clear picture. I having been working with nursing informatics in order to change the documentation choices to medial and lateral but am getting push-back. I cannot find a written reference to support my recommendations. Thank you in advance for your reply.
The only reference I can think of is the product IFU. This booklet is found in all packages of the device, sometimes on the manufacturer website or available upon request from sales rep.
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, NPD-BC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
Website http://www.hadawayassociates.com
Office Phone 770-358-7861
Waiting on car to be serviced so had some time to kill on my tablet. I checked this IFU
https://www.bardaccess.com/assets/literature/0735041_BardPort_IFU_web.pdf
Nothing there to label either lumen. Looks like your description of lateral and medial is the best suggestion, as long as the port body is always implanted in an east-west position. But I think most would be.
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, NPD-BC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
Website http://www.hadawayassociates.com
Office Phone 770-358-7861
Our computer charting identifies a dual lumen port as proximal and distal lumens. This is a nightmare since it no where near correct and no one is ever consistent with the charting. I too am working with the build team for medial and lateral, but find it very frustrating that it ever got into the chart that way to begin with. We don't have them very often so it's hard to keep everyone up to speed.
Sounds like someone just assumed that implanted ports and all CVADs were the same with staggered lumen exit sites. As you said, no where near correct! Good luck!
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, NPD-BC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
Website http://www.hadawayassociates.com
Office Phone 770-358-7861
Thank you Lynn and all for your replies.