In Need of a Vent Lecture, Please

Jon said:
Vent,

I'm curious about this, too... is this documented, or just your experience? The study you posted seemed to judge the HT50 adequate as a transport and EMS/Military vent.
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The term adequate is relative to the patient and the provider. I could probably transport a patient on an ATV, with me being a very unhappy provider, but I would have to be very pharmacologically proficient to adjust for whatever the situation called for. Unfortunately, there are many ICU patients that can not tolerate even bagging, which is also not preferred for transport, and require the higher level technology.
 
We use PTS as our primary transport provider, and most of our crews use a Newport. Sometimes they'll take one of our Versamed iVents, though.

VentMedic, thanks for the links -- I am always looking to learn more about vents. I only have experience with our Versamed, and we don't hold on to vented patients that long in our ED. I work with some former ICU nurses, though, who are amazing with tweaking vent settings.
 
Lunah said:
VentMedic, thanks for the links -- I am always looking to learn more about vents. I only have experience with our Versamed, and we don't hold on to vented patients that long in our ED. I work with some former ICU nurses, though, who are amazing with tweaking vent settings.
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It is interesting that when working as a Paramedic on CCT or Flight I make ventilator changes under the supervision of an RN. Of course, when I am on CCT, Flight or Specialty as an RRT, that is an entirely different situation.

We also do not loan out any technology unless one of our professionals is accompanying it.
 
VentMedic said:
We also do not loan out any technology unless one of our professionals is accompanying it.
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We don't do that often -- I work in a freestanding ED, and we only have two iVents to start with, so we don't like NOT having our backup. But our facility is a PTS "station," so at least we know they'll always come back with our stuff, in theory. :P We don't usually have an RN to spare to go with, and we don't have RTs in our ED. I wish we did!
 
Lunah said:
We don't do that often -- I work in a freestanding ED, and we only have two iVents to start with, so we don't like NOT having our backup. But our facility is a PTS "station," so at least we know they'll always come back with our stuff, in theory. :P We don't usually have an RN to spare to go with, and we don't have RTs in our ED. I wish we did!
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JCAHO is looking very closely at any ventilator documentation since there have been quite a few Sentinel events cited for them. As well, some of the largest damage settlements in the medical professions have been for ventilator related injury or death. Thus, the RT profession is now looking at raising their minimum education to the 4 year degree.

The other events that have caught the eye of JCAHO and Medicare have been infection related. We now log every patient on each machine for tracking purposes. Prehospital ventilators, if not filtered correctly, can spread infections to the patient and the providers. This has also been the controversy with CPAP and disaster management for disease outbreaks.
 
Question: do you have experience with the Hi-Lo Evac ET tubes? If so, have you seen them make a difference in vent-acquired pneumonia? Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread ... if I need to start a new one, just let me know. Still feeling my way around the forum.
 
I just hijacked another thread to talk about subglottic suction.

http://www.emtlife.com/showthread.php?t=12678



Yes, we use the subglottic suction tubes. We also use the trach tubes with this feature for our head and neck surgery patients that require longer term ventilator management or their TE fistula is problematic.
 
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