Confirming Feeding Tube Placement: Old Habits Die Hard

M ultiple publications have addressed the indica-tions for nasogastric or nasoenteric Feeding tubes and the importance of initial and ongoing veri-fication or confirmation of their proper In particular, studies show that Feeding tubes are not medically indicated for those unable to swallow be-cause of advanced ,2 For patients with appropriate indications for Feeding tubes , studies show that traditional methods of verifying proper placement at the bedside are not reliable. Unfortu-nately, these methods are still used, despite the availability of more reliable, evidence-based prac-tices to confirm proper Feeding tube Of greatest concern, errors have been reported to PA-PSRS even when the gold standard of confirmation, a radiograph (x-ray) of the chest, has been done but misinterpreted by a patient s physician. This article will review reports to PA-PSRS indicating problems from misplacement of nasogastric and nasoenteric Feeding tubes , review the literature on proper verification of the location of these Feeding tubes , and propose algorithms for Confirming the lo-cation of these tubes , based on the literature review.

The American Association of Critical Care Nurses13 advises that pH testing be augmented by appear-ance of the aspirate to bring the accuracy closer to the gold standard, radiographic confirmation. The ... nasogastric tubes of patients in the study. The investigators advocated replacing con-firmatory x-rays with capnometry.19,20 However, this ...

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  Critical, Care, Tubes, Critical care, Nasogastric, Nasogastric tubes

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