ATLANTA, GA – Finding his census of 20 patients unacceptable, medicine attending Randy Evans did the only logical thing: he gave his patient list an 80 mg dose of IV Lasix and over the next several hours successfully diuresed his list down to 6.
“There are times when you’ve got to diurese the list and this was one of those times,” said Evans, who is breathing much easier now that he is net negative 14 patients in the past 12 hours. “I feel 20 pounds lighter.”
It is not uncommon for health care providers to develop edematous patient lists, to the point that it’s affecting their quality of life or the list itself is weeping medical record numbers. There’s only one way to fix that and it starts with a simple declaration: “It’s time to diurese.” Though there are many diuretic agents out there, most providers stick with their steady gun: Lasix.
“We’re seeing an epidemic of congestive list failure,” says cardiologist Tamara Jones, who sometimes potentiates list diuresis with metolazone. “The number of patients a provider has to see may lead to volume overload and even shock. As in, I’m shocked by all these patients I have to see on this census!”
Evans’ patient list is now euvolemic without crackles or JVD. It is unclear if Evans plans to start a maintenance regimen of oral Lasix.
“Last month, I had 30 patient encounters, my list was getting huge, I was getting winded and lightheaded,” said Evans as he checked his list for any pitting edema. “I called Tamara, we moved my patient list to the CCU and started a Lasix drip. That was one hard list to diurese. And keeping up with potassium repletion was a bear.”
