Moving in ICU... twice

So I mentioned the issues with moving rooms on Sara's blog - it's amazing the issues that are still being worked out in this brand new hospital. Though I guess it's not really that surprising when you bring a whole building up in a week, and have everyone using all the things that hadn't been used before. It's really like releasing software as Generally Available, and using all your first adopters as beta testers.

So we were moved in the first place for a good reason - Antonia, the night nurse from last night that we liked, had another patient as well, so we were moved to the adjacent room. That it was a large isolation negative pressure room seemed an added bonus. But as soon as we were in the room we realized it was hot. So we ended up propping the door to the room to get some air flow in from the hallway -- but that means the alarm for the negative pressure seal was beeping constantly. And both at the room, and at the nurse's station! So we dealt with the incessant beeping for 8 hours! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In order to change the temp on a room, you need to log in to the facilities management website and go through a four page form with a number of drop down boxes selecting different items (and they better be the right items or your ticket gets delayed). I'm familiar with this from work for IT support, and it's a pain. Add that the staff has never used it, and this form becomes something that takes two people 15 minutes to fill out. Then you get no feedback if the ticket has been handled, so who knows when the person downstairs was able to see you needed it adjusted and make the change in the computer. After an hour with no change, we asked what the status was, and if they could check on the work order. I don't think they really knew how to do that, so we got vague answers. After another hour I told the nurses that I was willing to get on the phone and keep calling people until someone came and fixed it. They pushed me off a bit and said they'd follow up.

After another hour, the charge nurse was brought into the equation and I repeated my offer to her. She preferred to call the nursing supervisor to see if he had any pull, and about an hour after that, we finally saw the first facilities person. He actually mentioned that he had changed the temp in the computer, but apparently it wasn't changing here. Uhhh... yeah. So he utilized a pretty high tech device to see if there was air coming from the vent. An extensible alligator clip with a piece of toilet paper gripped by the alligator. Sure enough, no TP movement. So after a couple of hours of him fiddling, we see an additional 3 facilities guys start going through the ceiling in the hallway, checking our vents, the control panels, and so on. All four people working weren't able to get the thing fixed, so we moved.

But the comedy doesn't stop there! While they were unresponsive to our work order, we were given a cooling blanket for Sara. It's a flexible blanket, with channels for water to run through in one direction. It's connected to a portable compressor that circulates water through the blanket, and while in the compressor, cools it to the temperature you specify. They actually work really well - when you connect the blanket to the compressor correctly, and make sure the tubes are locked. When you don't take that step, you typically end up with a little water feature in your room as the water is pumped out (quite quickly) from the tube that has been forced free of its bonds!

So, after cleaning up the spill, the compressor didn't have enough water in it to work correctly, but we didn't determine this for about 30 minutes. Finding water to replace it took a while as the assistant didn't know where to get any distilled water. Finally Antonia just grabbed a bottle of sterile water (even better than distilled, right?) and poured it in. Voila! After I notched down the temp of the water 30 degrees from its original setting, Sara was finally cooled. It did nothing for those of us in gowns and masks, but we had the freedom to actually leave the room if we needed a breather.

It was a fun evening.