Today we're going to be talking about Alaris pumps, how to prime the tubing, and how to get ready to give it IV piggyback infusion. So first I'm going to select my Alaris primary tubing. Right here. I'm going to open it. When I take it out, I'm going to note that the clamp is open.
And you always want to go ahead and close your clamp. Now there's a couple different ways of spiking a bag. I'll show you both. Right now we're going to spike it by simply holding the bag and pulling the tab off. Careful to keep this all sterile and we're going to go ahead and insert this spike into the bag with a twisting motion.
Once we've done that we can go ahead and hang it up on the hook. and squeeze the drip chamber right here until it's halfway full. I'm going to go ahead and loosen the cap on the end of the tubing slightly, and I'm going to slowly open this clamp and let the fluid run through the tubing. I'm careful to remove all of the air bubbles.
And it's coming through. Okay, now we're ready to go over to our Larus pump and turn it on. We're going to turn it on right down here in the corner where it says system on.
We're going to press the button. Now it's going to ask us if this is a new patient and we're going to go ahead for these purposes and say yes. It's going to ask us is this a med surg patient? Well today we're pretending it is, so yes.
Now they're asking for my patient ID number so I would enter that and after I did so I would press confirm down on the bottom and we're going to go ahead and put the IV tubing into the pump. We're opening the door and taking our tubing with this part with the little edge at the top and the blue filter down here below we're going to push it in it's going to click. Once it's clicked in, we're going to go ahead and close the door gently.
And now we're ready to select our channel. You can see that I've chosen channel A closest to me, so I'll press channel select. We're then going to go ahead and select an infusion.
Now you'll note that you have three choices. You have guardrail drugs, guardrails IV fluids, or basic infusion. Now most of the time in the hospital you'll be using guardrails drugs or guardrails IV fluids. Today we will use basic infusion.
So I'm going to go ahead and press basic infusion and I know that in the physician's orders there was an order for normal saline to be run at 100 mLs per hour. So I'm going to go ahead and press next to rate and now I'm allowed at the bottom to enter 100. Next you see VTBI, which is volume to be infused, and I'm going to go ahead and press that. And I'm going to enter 900 ml, which is in my IV bag. Now I'm going to make sure all of my clamps are open. I'm going to go ahead and press start on the bottom right of the main screen, and my IV solution will be infusing.
Once we hang our tubing, we're going to go ahead and label it. so that future nurses taking care of the patient will know when to change this tubing. Every facility is different, but typically it's between 72 and 96 hours. So I've got cefazole in two grams that I'm going to hang, and I'm going to go ahead and back prime this.
So I've got my secondary tubing fresh off the cart. I'm going to open it up, take it out. And you'll notice that the clamp is open. Always close that clamp. Now that I've done that, I'm going to hang my Cefazolin up here and prime the tubing.
I'm maintaining sterility of both this port and this port. I'm going to select the port to connect the secondary tubing and I want to make sure that it's a port above the pump. So I'm going to go ahead and cleanse with a brand new alcohol prep pad for 15 seconds or whatever your facility policy dictates.
And then I'm going to connect the tubing to the port, twist until it's secure. At this point I'm going to fill my secondary tubing after I pause the pump by slowly opening flow up into the chamber until it's halfway. And I will drop down the primary solution.
My pump is paused and I'm going to push channel select. And down at the bottom I have a little menu across the bottom and I'm going to press secondary. At this point I know I'm giving cefazolin 2 grams so I will press cefazolin and it's going to give me an option of 1000 milligrams or 2000 milligrams and 50 ml. I am choosing the 2000 milligrams or 2 grams and it's going to ask me to confirm. I'm going to say yes.
Now at this point it gives me another confirmation of the dosage and the amount in milliliters. I'm going to press next to confirm. Now I'm going to set the rate. It will automatically calculate the rate after I tell it how long I would like the medication to infuse. And I would like it to infuse over 30 minutes.
So I'm going to press Duration and press 30 down at the bottom. And it will automatically calculate my rate at 100 mLs per hour. At this point, I want to make sure that my clamp is open.
And I'm going to press Start down at the bottom right of the main chamber. I'm checking to make sure that the medication is dripping and we are all done with the back priming and the hanging of the primary line.