Capnography Monitoring Best Practice for Respiratory Monitoring for Post-Surgical Patients

Capnography is a non-invasive measurement of inspiration and expiration of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the airway. This nursing unit implemented CO2 monitoring on all post-surgical patients on the medical-surgical unit. All patients admitted to this unit are post-surgical. The surgical procedures can include spine, orthopedics, gynecological, urology, and general surgery. The majority of the patients are prescribed narcotics and patient-controlled analgesia (PCA); some patients that are narcotic naive can experience respiratory depression or sometimes failure. CO2 monitoring provides early detection of potential respiratory depression or failure. Prior to implementing CO2 monitoring patients were only monitored by visual assessment, vital signs. and pulse oximetry. Narcan and the rapid response team were frequently utilized for patients that required interventions based on narcotic intolerance. This poster presentation will discuss the use of CO2 monitoring on a medical-surgical floor in an effort to identify early detection of patients that may experience narcotic sensitivity. The poster will discuss policy development for this initiative, and it will discuss the use of CO2 monitoring and the decreased use of narcan, narcotic pain management based on CO2 levels, and less use of the rapid response team. Capnography monitoring on this unit is a nurse-driven intervention and is best practice for respiratory monitoring for post-surgical patients that are prescribed narcotics.

Evidence-based references
Capnography is a non-invasive measurement of inspiration and expiration of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the airway. Capnography monitoring on this unit is a nurse-driven intervention and is best practice for respiratory monitoring for post-surgical patients that are prescribed narcotics.