Quote:
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins
BRC,
There is obviously a critical shortage of RTs in the US for this. I know that anesthesiologists and CRNAs can help fill some of that gap, but could an RT working remotely monitor multiple vents at once, giving instructions to lesser-trained healthcare workers (nurse's aids, LPNs) for the appropriate adjustments to serve as a sort of force multiplier?
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Possibly......
Doctor says change the vent to "this" number. I'm sure you can show someone how to change that setting relatively easy. Turn a dial or put in a new number in the LED display. That part could obviously be monitored remotely.
but the reason you have RT's running vents and not RN's is the specialty to pick up on something before it sends the patient down a bad path.
One example:
Doctors are busy. They miss the dietitian increased the patients caloric intake. ABG's come back with increased Co2. Doc is not aware of the incresed caloric intake, freaks out and starts ordering "stuff" that will send the patient down a really bad path. But, if you see what the dietitian ordered all we need to do is to increase the frequencies of breaths per minute to blow off the dangerous Co2 created by the increase in calories. I caught that at least once a week. They are already on a vent, Hanging on to life very precariously. Not going to take much to send them into organ failure. That was in "normal" times. In a crisis.... Yikes.
Remote we would not be able to hear breath sounds on the lungs as the vent pushes the air in and out. Sure, nurses and doctors listen to breath sounds but we are the experts. Thats our bread and butter. We can pick up on the smallest change in the lungs before most. How did the breath sounds change after suctioning? Start the intervention going earlier to avoid that bad outcome.
It is a crisis. We would just hope everyone is paying attention to the chart changes, The RN's giving more detailed breath sounds. Ability to communicate with the RN to double check an area of the lungs etc. so I guess in crisis, yes, its doable.