Assessing and documenting fluid balance
Sarah Pinnington Acute care clinical educator, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, England
Sarah Ingleby Lead nurse, acute care and hospital at night, Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, England
Prasanna Hanumapura Acute kidney injury specialist nurse, Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, England
Deryn Waring Acute kidney injury specialist nurse, Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, England
Concerns about inadequate patient hydration and suboptimal monitoring of fluid balance have been documented in recent reports. The Fluid-balance Improvement Project at Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was undertaken to identify risk factors influencing hydration and to implement a revised process to manage these risks, resulting in the development of a hydration pathway. This new approach to monitoring patient hydration, together with staff education and support, has resulted in improved compliance with fluid-balance monitoring standards, as well as significant improvements in identifying patients at risk of dehydration, and an increase in patients with acute kidney injury correctly beginning fluid-balance monitoring.
Nursing Standard.
doi: 10.7748/ns.2016.e10432
Correspondence
sarah.pinnington@cmft.nhs.uk
Peer review
This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software
Received: 28 January 2016
Accepted: 19 April 2016
Published online: 05 December 2016
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