[ RadSafe ] RE: Iodine Therapy Rooms

[Michael, Joey L]

We use Chux pads (incontinent pads).  Tape them around all edges and they shouldn't be a tripping hazard.  We still have porcelain sinks and toilets.  They seem to absorb the iodine and release some of it, so stainless may be better.  Maybe your risk management people need to be involved.  I would let nursing and nuclear medicine know that if you don't cover the floor, the room may be down for several days.  The hospital risks losing revenue due to an empty un-billable room vs. the chance that someone could trip.  We've never had anyone trip as far as I know.  We did have a problem years ago before we used a lead lined room.  To achieve an exposure rate of <2 mR/hr in the hall, the bed was moved.  This caused problems because of all the other medical equipment in the room  - so I would advise against doing that.  

Maybe there is some kind of rubber mat that could be unrolled to cover the floor and removed after the therapy for decay in storage.  You would need several, it would be hard/awkward to manipulate and take up space.  

I guess the other option would be to put the patient in something like a level A hazmat suit so that everything stays contained , but that would cause other problems.

I'm curious to see other responses on this as well.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf Of Poston Jr,Jay
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 2:29 PM
To: radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Iodine Therapy Rooms

We are looking to change our process for preparing our iodine therapy rooms.  Right now we paper the floor and the bath room with "butcher paper" and incontinent pads.  We cover just about everything else with plastic or incontinent pads, also.  Recently some concerns have been raised about a tripping hazard existing due to the papered floors.  Nuclear Medicine and Nursing wants to stop papering the floors, but of course they aren't the ones performing the decontamination and this won't increase their work.  Any other suggestions out there on a better approach to protecting the floors?

The room floor is linoleum and the bathroom floor is grouted tiles, so we are also looking to remove the old flooring and to cover them with some kind of epoxy flooring with rounded corners and coping.  Anyone have any success (or bad experiences) with such an approach?

Finally, the thought came up to change out the ceramic sink and toilet with stainless steel.  Anyone have any success (or bad experiences) with such an approach?

Thanks,
Jay Poston

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