What Constitutes Safe Enteral Connections
It is important to maintain quality in just about everything. Failing to meet the required standards may result in financial loss or even penalties occasionally but failing to adhere to the set standards in the health care industry can lead to an individual’s death.
Sadly, the medical professionals and care givers tend to be careless many a time using faulty connections that endangers the life of a patient. However, every medical facility needs to put their patients first. It is with this purpose in mind, the regulation necessitating all health care facilities and laboratories to transit to the new ISO connectors have come into force at present.
There are numerous patients admitted to a medical facility at any given point of time. It is essential to feed a number of them via tubes as well as administer essential medication by inserting several lines into the patient simultaneously. The connectors used in the past were usually compatible with each other and got mixed up frequently causing untold misery to the patient often ending in death as well. Delivering liquid food into the airway or administering a strong drug via the wrong tube has snatched many a life away and resulted in numerous legal suits for the doctors and care givers.
‘The International Organization for Standardization (ISO)’ came up with a plan to reduce the instances of mismatched connections therefore. This has resulted in saving many lives while ISO 80369-3 aimed at promoting safe enteral connections was implemented first with many manufacturers transitioning to the new standards at the earliest. The ENFit brand has been one of the first to ensure safe connections and remains highly popular. It adheres to the International Standards perfectly by providing additional safety measures across all connectors that can be safely joined to diverse equipment even when the concerned patient has multiple lines attached.
Devices compliant with ISO 80369-3
There are a number of ENFit complaint caps and plugs available as oral adapters as well as large female connectors along with corresponding male connectors in a variety of colors for easy identification. The unvented Caps with straps in both male and female versions are available for use as well.
A number of connectors that can be locked in place to prevent wrong connections are sold by leading manufacturers too. The Luer lock adaptor along with clear connectors meant to be fitted to specific tubings make the work of health care staff much easier at present.
Spikes fitted with feeding tubes and bags for delivering the nutritionally enhanced feed directly into the patient’s stomach comes in a number of sizes and colors.
It is essential to use specialized stopcocks to be fitted with specific feeding equipment too. It is usually a three way stopcock that helps particularly frail and premature infants to be fed safely and accurately. Most reputed manufacturers offer ENFit compliant products.
The standard enteral connections are deemed to be completely safe and can be fitted with specific apparatus used for feeding, administration of medicines, and flushing out contaminants.
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