Food: Food is provided from dietary services (ie: cafeteria). What type of food provided is determined by your doctor’s order. Different hospital diets include:
NPO – “nil per os” – Latin for nothing by mouth. NPO means you cannot eat; usually only small sips of water to wet mouth or take pills is allowed. Many test, often due to sedation given, require nothing to eat before it. There are also many medical conditions (ie: stomach ulcers, bowel obstructions, etc) which eating will make worse.
Clear Liquid Diet – water, gingerale, other clears liquids. This is a minimal diet of liquids when food is being reintroduces or when only minimal intake is desired.
Full Liquid Diet – un upgrade but still liquid diet; soup, oatmeal, Jell-O type foods are provided.
Regular diet – normal general food. Often tailored for specific medical problems like diabetes, heart conditions, kidney dysfunction.
Dysphagia Diet – dysphagia means trouble swallowing. These diets alter the food to make it easier and safer to swallow. Chopped, minces, pureed are examples. Also for patients with trouble swallowing liquids these can be made thicker like nectar, honey, or pudding consistencie. These diets are often ordered in conjunction with a speech therapy assessment.
Toileting – All hospital rooms (outside of the ER) have a private bathroom. For those patients who are not strong or safe enough, or if their medical condition requires bedrest, alternatives such as a bedside commode, handheld urinal, Purewick , bedpan, condom catheter, or indwelling (Foley) catheters are provided.
Purewick – a banana shaped blue device hooked to wall suction and placed in from of a woman’s urethra. When one urinates the urine is sucked into the catheter. This allows the patient who cannot get out of bed to urinate at any time without nursing assistance and avoiding an indwelling bladder catheter. The male version is a bag placed over the penis with the suction catheter out of the bottom.
Indwelling bladder catheter (Foley) – plastic catheter inserted into the urethra into the bladder and drains into a collection bag. Used for those who are unable to urinary or critically ill. Catheters are the major (75%) cause for hospital acquired UTIs. Catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) are more likely the longer the catheter stays in. Avoiding CAUTIs is of primary importance for patient safety while hospitalized. Overarching goals is to avoid indewlling bladder catheters if at all possible or use them as short a time as reasonable and remove. As an aside, a permanent/long-term, indwelling fully catheters at home will always make a analysis look like a “UTI”. This is from the colonization of the catheter itself. Thus taking a urine sample for someone to chronic catheter and diagnose of the UTI is not accurate.
Condom (Texas) catheter – a catheter which is a condom attached to a collection bag. It covers a man’s penis to collect urine much like a indwelling catheter, but is external and does not create the same risk of UTI. It is more common to use a Purewick now for men.
Urine output monitoring is critical in certain medical conditions (ie: heart failure, kidney dysfunction) and knowing exactly how much fluid a patients drinks and urinates guides therapy. If you are urinating independently your nurse may ask to record how much urine your made before it is flushed away.
Telemetry – telemetry or cardiac monitoring is an EKG a patients wears while in the hospital. It gives continuous real-time monitoring of the heart’s electrical activity. All telemetry patients are monitored 100% of the time by specialty trained staff at a remote monitoring station. If there is a sudden change or leads become disconnected the monitor tech calls the nurse to inform them so they can immediately check on the patient. The telemetry monitors in the room analyze the rhythm constantly and will alarm if senses a problem; unfortunately, machines generate a high number of false alarms. These can frighten patients or just annoy them by the noise. If you have concerns talk with the nurse or doctor who can adjust the telemetry settings or remove it if not longer needed.
IV pumps -many medications are provided intravenously. Often mixed with a salt solution and run through the IV. Pumps allow the continuous infusion at a specific rate. They are also notoriously annoying and beep for multiple reasons; the most common being when somebody bends their arm and creates increase pressure in their vein. The IV pump senses this and starts beeping as a “downstream obstruction”. To correct this straightened out your arm.
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