For every 100 Americans, about five made an emergency room visitto a community hospital in 2022. And this number doesn’t even include millions of hospital inpatient stays or outpatient procedures, further emphasizing the importance and challenge of providing quality care every time someone walks in or is wheeled in the door.  

Every nurse knows durable medical equipment doesn’t last forever.

When was the last time you kicked a hospital bed in frustration because the motor ground to a halt as you were elevating a patient’s head? Or you discovered an IV pump apparently quit working in the middle of the night, depriving your patient of vital hydration?

When equipment like aportable suction machineunexpectedly stops working, it can be more than a nuisance. It endangers patient safety. If you reach for a suction wand because your patient aspirated and you discover there’s no suction, there may be a bad outcome.

A hospital visit can save a patient’s life. It can also destroy it if they pick up a virulent healthcare-associated infection (HAI). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that on any given day, 1 in 31 hospital patients has at least one HAI.

In October of 2012, Superstorm Sandy hit New York City with a vengeance. As area hospitals braced for the storm’s impact, administrators had no reason to fear their back-up generators would fail to function if the city’s power grid went down.

They were wrong.

When you think of in-hospital suction, you probably picture the typical wall-mounted unit that is supplied by vacuum lines piped throughout the building. What may not come readily to mind are portable suction units, but portable suction plays a vital role in the hospital setting. Let's familiarize ourselves with in-hospital suction strategies.

Portable suction can be a quick emergency intervention, a long-term treatment for patients under anesthesia, or a way to maintain safety and hygiene for people on ventilators.

In the event of a pandemic or other health emergency, hospital emergency departments and intensive care units can become overwhelmed. Doctors, nurses, and medical personnel are being asked to go above and beyond to protect patients — and to do it quickly.

Here are a few questions for all you paramedics out there: When was the last time you decompressed a tension pneumothorax? How many surgical airways have you performed? Have you ever delivered a baby in the prehospital setting? And how many times have you performed a rapid sequence intubation?

CPR, ACLS, NRP, PAL. As a nurse, you are likely familiar with some, if not all, of these acronyms. Early in your career, you were taught the skills to resuscitate a patient in cardiac or respiratory arrest. Every few years, you attend a class to review and renew your certification.

If you are in the market for a portable suction device, you’ll notice that there is a large variety of different products available. Depending upon your intended use, you will need to evaluate several things. Consider, for example: