 Hi guys, welcome back to this video. Today, I want to talk about my morning COVID routine for working in the ICU. My routine sort of changed up a little bit since I've been working on a COVID unit and so I wanted to talk to you guys about what I've been doing a little differently and just talk through my routine. If you follow me on Instagram, I actually posted this whole routine. So you may have already heard some of this stuff, but if you haven't, stay tuned and also make sure you follow me on Instagram because I share a lot of things over on there as well. So my routine's changed up a little bit and one of the things that I do differently right when I come on to work is I change into some OR sterile scrubs. Now these aren't always available for us depending on how many elective surgeries there are, how many people have been wearing them, but if they're available to me, I like to change into these scrubs so that way I can wear my clean scrubs home after shift. But if not, I usually bring a change of clothes with me so that way I can change into them right away after my shift. So I get into my OR scrubs. I'm clocked in. I get my patient assignment. I usually will have one or two patients, but I'm going to talk about what I do if I have two patients that are both COVID positive or COVID rule out in this kind of scenario. But I go and I get reports. Some people were asking if we're still doing bedside report and it kind of depends on the patient, the circumstance and what's going on. So we try to do bedside report, but we're also trying to say PPE. So luckily we can see the patients from the window, from the door, so that way we don't always have to go in. But if it's necessary and there's something major going on or something that we really need to double check together, then absolutely we will go in the room together. After report, what I like to do is I usually will wipe down my whole area with sandy wipes, the phone, the computer, my desk, the chair, everything that I'm going to be interacting with. I like to do that right away in the morning. And then I will go into patient number one's room. Usually my less sick patient, I will just go and pop in their room really quick. Do just a very brief assessment. I will check their monitor, make sure their alarms are set correctly, make sure the parameters are set correctly. I will make sure none of their IV medications or drips are going to run out, are going to alarm at me. If they need a bed alarm, I will put the bed alarm on. So I'm basically doing a very quick head to toe assessment and also a safety check, making sure that while I'm over in patient number two's room, there's not going to be anything going on in this room that's going to potentially cause an emergency or I'm at least going to be notified of it, aka my alarm's going to go off because my parameters are set correctly to how I would like them. I can't tell you how many times I come on shift and alarms are shut off completely. And if you don't check your monitor, then you don't know, you're not going to catch that. Your monitors are your eyes and your ears when you are in another patient's room or even when you're sitting outside of the room. So always make sure those are on. So I usually go and do that on my less sick patient first. It only takes me a couple minutes. Of course, I'm all gowned up in my COVID stuff. While I'm in patient number one's room, it's also a good idea to kind of look at like, what supplies do I have? What am I going to need to bring in? So that way I'm not wasting PPE coming in and out of a room just to grab like a flush or something like that. So I'll look to see what I have in the room so that way I can bring that back in when I come to do their medications. I leave the room and then I will go and grab the medications for patient number two. I'll also grab any little supplies that I may need the glucometer if I need to do lab draws, whatnot, but I will go into patient number two's room and I will do a head to toe assessment. I will check all their alarms, monitors, the whole safety check that I did for patient number one, but this time I will give them medications. I'll check their blood sugar. I will do any labs, anything that's outstanding. I'll kind of tidy up the room, check their skin, make sure their bed is all clean, make sure that they're not dirty. I'll do my eyes and nose. I also will be charting little bits here and there to try and do the most real time charting that I can. And once I finish up in patient number two's room, then I will come out of the room, go grab the medications and things that I'll need for patient number one and then go back into that room and just kind of finish up an assessment if I need to do all the meds, labs, glucose check, all the things that I already did for patient number two. I will finish doing that on patient number one. And when I'm done in there, I will come out to my desk area and chart anything that's left over. So like I said, I try to chart as I go, but it's not always easy to, you know, get a full blown assessment in and then you're kind of wasting time from going and checking at your other patient. This method allows me to only gown up three, I always do that six, three times to check up on my patients. I've thought about kind of combining some steps to where it could only be two. Like I could grab patient number one's meds and do all that. But then I'm not going in to see patient number two for a longer period of time because if you work in the ICU and you have two vented, sedated patients, you can be in the rooms for an hour plus sometimes. And I don't feel comfortable not getting a visual on both patients within the beginning of my shift. And usually by this time, it's like nine-ish and I've finished up my charting and whatnot and I'm getting ready to go in and, you know, do my next patient turn or maybe I have a CT run or maybe we've got a bronc or maybe we're going to ex-debate. I don't know. It's like there's so many things in the ICU in your mornings very so much, but this is kind of my COVID routine that's slightly different from what my normal ICU routine is. I hope you guys enjoyed and found this helpful. Let me know down below if your routine's a little different. Obviously, if you have more patients, it can be like totally, totally different. And I hope you guys are all staying safe and doing okay. Let me know if you like these types of videos, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. And I'll see you next time. Bye.