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Yes,
home hospice. That was what I was referring to. This was not a
routine occurence, but only for special circumstances.
Donna Fritz, MN, RN,
OCN
Oncology/Pain Clinical Nurse Specialist
Cancer Center
St. Mary-Corwin
Medical Center
719.560-5215
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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
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 *****************************************************************************
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