Re: subq MS in LTC

[Martha Pike]

I have had the same question come up several times in long term care facilities. I do not see the advantage to using this method in a skilled nursing facility. When we put in a SC set for infusion there are tiny amounts being injected / infused over time, which gives the tissue time to absorb the drug and minimizes inflammation at the site.  If you are injecting a larger dose every few hours it is probably going to hurt just as much as getting multiple separate injections as most of the pain is from the drug going in - not the needle.  It would seem that the lack of site rotation may also result in more damage to the tissue. Having received morphine injections I have experienced those nasty and painful lumps at the injection site and cannot imagine having repeated drug injections at the same location. I have not had the opportunity to ask the hopice nurses this question, but I wonder if this method was invented for home hospice when the patient or other non-clinician may be administering the med???? /Martha On Apr 26, 2006, at 4:43 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Has anyone heard of placing a subq needle and giving morphine by push, capping off the extension tubing and administering it either routinely or prn? This situation came up in a LTC facility where the local pharmacy states that a hospice company is doing that and not using a PCA pump. It sounds great because nurses in LTC don't use a PCA pump very often and they don't feel comfortable with one, whereas just pushing the MS through an indwelling needle saves the resident many sticks. I am interested to see if other nurses around the country have heard of this practice.   Thanks, Diane Jiles, RN-CRNI