We get dialysis done for our patients using nurses who are contracted from another company and are not part of our staff. They do not change our dressings. I prefer this since they have a different method (non-sterile and no chlorhexidine and gauze dressings). But our new manager thinks that they should be doing it. Does anyone have any comment about this?
I am most familiar with only dialysis nurses doing all the routine care and maintenance for a dialysis catheter.
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, BC, CRNI
www.hadawayassociates.com
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
We outsource our acute dialysis services and I am the hospital liason for the program. They are only in the building M-W-F and and days for any emergencies on the off-hours. Dialysis performs all the care and maintenance of their catheters, however, if a dressing falls off, becomes bloody, etc, the floor RN will either secure the dressing or replace the soiled dressing. Floor staff can never access the catheter, except in a life-threatening emergency when other access is not available. This has worked well, except that anesthesia sometimes "gets lazy" and uses the catheter during surgery and inadvertantly the patient gets sent back to the floor with the permacath accesses and floor staff does not know what to do. Either dialysis or myself is called in to d/c the infusion and heparinize the catheter.
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