Intravenous therapy is effective in promoting one’s health and wellness. If correctly done, the infusion of vitamins and minerals into the bloodstream can help provide immediate hydration, reverse vitamin/mineral deficiency and ensure direct absorption.
However, an improper infusion is dangerous for patients. It may result in complications like infiltration, infection, air embolism, and vein inflammation due to the high pH administered. The worst would be a hematoma, leakage of blood from the vessels into surrounding tissues.
To prevent such complications, healthcare providers must ensure they deploy the following safety precautions and measures:
Proper Handling of Equipment
The safety of any medical procedure significantly depends on the medical equipment and how the process is conducted. Doctors and nurses must adequately understand various equipment and handle them per the manufacturers’ guidelines.
Also, staff must be trained on how to use various infusion types and devices. Since the IV therapy is infusion administered with needles, it requires no errors. So, the entire process should be directed or inspected by a qualified and licensed physician to minimize risks.
Adequate Screening
All drugs would cause side effects, and some may even worsen a patient’s underlying conditions. So, doctors must properly review their patients’ medical history like surgical and reactions to various medications.
Check for any signs of allergies like rash and hives, blisters, and swelling of various body parts. Also, ask about the patient’s likelihood of electrolyte or fluid problems. Consult if they ever experienced mood changes and confusion, muscles weakness and pain or any other abnormal feeling after taking fluids.
A proper review of all the infections and underlying conditions would ensure that the type of treatment given to the patient is safe or appropriate to their health.
Effective Use of Technology
No doubt, but technology impacts the health sector in various ways. It has ensured that diverse health professionals remotely manage their patients, schedule appointments, and respond to different emergencies, thus boosting patient care.
So, to facilitate and complete evaluation of IV therapy patients, doctors and nurses should incorporate TeleMedicine; use of digital communication devices and computers to improve access and delivery of health services. Through this technology, medical experts would be able to give instructions, watch, and see their patients’ progress irrespective of the location.
This technology would also help remind the patients about their medications, appointments or check-up dates. This helps avoid any severe consequences that would result from missed or delayed medication taking and appointments.
For health centers that struggle to keep patients’ history, deploying Telemedicine would help keep patients for easy screening. Managing regular patients would be easier as their details are held on the clouds.
Meaning medical experts can get essential information about patients’ past medical history, test results, diagnosis and their body reactions to various treatment methods just with a touch of a button. This ensures faster and adequate medical assistance.
Conclusion
IV therapy can be a complicated process if carelessly conducted. Therefore, before starting infusion therapy, medical experts must procure their patients’ medical history and analyze any underlying reaction that the vitamin/mineral infusion would worsen. Doctors and nurses must also adequately understand and handle all the medical equipment and ensure the equipment is safe and taken from reputable manufacturers.