Continuing on with our ICU nursing series!
If you have not already, please make sure you watch my other videos on how to set up for an arterial line and also how to draw blood from an arterial line!
• Arterial Line Setup an...
• Drawing Blood from an ...
Here is a video on how I get the room ready for a basic ICU patient. Now, on our unit, we have many patients who come for observation & will just need the basic room setup. If you would like to see a room set up for a very critical patient, please let me know! I will record a video for a more complicated patient.
I try to do things in the same order each time, so I'm less likely to forget things & have to walk back into the supply room.
In this room though, we will start basic, so here are the things I gather for those patients:
A mepilex to protect the patients skin.
Bath wipes for perineal area
Chlorhexidine wipes for the rest of the patients body to prevent infections
Lab tubes
A urinal
gauze and tape
a pulse oximeter
Tele leads
A BP cuff
IV tubing
Swab caps
I also set up suction.
The first thing I do in the room is to zero the bed, a lot of departments take the beds ahead of time, so I want to make sure the bed is zeroed prior to them taking the bed so that I can get an accurate weight when the patient
arrives.
Usually, we have time to look up the patients prior to arrival to the intensive care and if a vent is needed, someone from the transferring department will call us and let us know, so that we can have a ventilator ready for them.
Other things we need frequently are arterial lines cables and possibly more pressure cables for CVP & PA pressures - I can show you this in the more advanced video... so please give this video a thumbs up for more videos!
See you soon!