As The Pump Turns

No, it’s not me, although I might one day.  Be afraid, very very afraid.

So I have some news and I’ve been scouring the internet and even Medisystems website to try to find a picture of it, but alas, they don’t have one up…so this post will be updated later on in the week with a visual of what I am talking about.

Yippee.

Recently the company I work for as been researching ways to reduce the infection rate in our clinics.  Now granted the itty-bitty clinic I work at (12 chair) as the lowest rate in the company, but it is still there. 

A majority of our fistula patients are “buttonholed“, there are a few complaints from a few patients saying that after a while their sites can become more “tender” then before we started.  I can understand this.  It actually makes sense to me, but you know, not much I can do about it, unless the pain is overwhelming and unless there is an infection in one of the sites it is unwritten policy that we maintain their buttonholes.

I wonder if other patients feel the same way?

(I went off on a tangent, huh? Sorry, *pops an allderol*)

Okay, so before we used to take sterile tweezers and pick off the scabs with them.  Both sites, one tweezer, see the infection control problem? 

Well our company sure did and apparently so did the buttonhole needle manufacturer…which I believe is Medisystems but since I can’t find it on their website, I am wondering.  Anywho, they came up with a brilliant idea!

They added a tiny sterile pick inside the set.  So, imagine with me what the buttonhole set looks like….(ommmmmm).  That  plastic shield that sits comfortably around the blunt needle, instead of having that ball of cotton how has a white plastic pick that you can pull off and use to pick off the scabs, with sterility! 

Each cannulation site has it’s own pick!  No more cross contamination!  Cost effectiveness!  Now I sound like the Clinical Manager!

One really needs a picture of this, but alas I do not work until the end of the week so I can’t just wander in with my camera and set up the picture. 

I have only one major concern, which I have yet to share with the CM.  Is that I have only seen the 15 guage buttonhole with pick sets, not the 14 guage and 16 guage, both of which we use quiet often.  Hmmm?  I guess in time we shall see.