Certified Hemodialysis Technician Flashcards
7 cards from real CHT practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Certified Hemodialysis Technician flashcards as text
The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) standard for maximum allowable bacteria count in water used for hemodialysis is:
Answer: 100 CFU/mL
AAMI standards require dialysis water to contain fewer than 100 CFU/mL of bacteria to ensure patient safety during treatment.
When disconnecting a patient at the end of hemodialysis, the blood is returned to the patient using:
Answer: Normal saline rinse-back through the arterial line
Blood is returned at treatment end by infusing normal saline through the arterial line, pushing blood from the circuit back to the patient through the venous line.
A patient's dialysis adequacy lab results show a URR of 58%. According to KDOQI, this result indicates:
Answer: Inadequate dialysis requiring intervention
KDOQI recommends a minimum URR of 65%; a URR of 58% is below target and indicates inadequate urea reduction, requiring assessment of treatment parameters.
Which action is the technician's FIRST priority when a patient reports sudden chest pain and difficulty breathing during dialysis?
Answer: Notify the charge nurse or physician immediately and assess for air embolism
Sudden chest pain with dyspnea during dialysis is a medical emergency potentially indicating air embolism, cardiac event, or hemolysis requiring immediate physician notification.
Aluminum toxicity in dialysis patients historically occurred most commonly as a result of:
Answer: High aluminum content in dialysate from inadequately treated water
Before modern water treatment standards, inadequately purified water delivered aluminum directly into the bloodstream via dialysate, causing dialysis dementia and bone disease.
When a patient with a synthetic AV graft requires needle insertion, the technician should rotate needle sites to prevent:
Answer: Aneurysmal dilation from repeated cannulation in the same area
Repeated needle insertion at the same site in a graft causes localized weakness and aneurysm formation, so rotating sites (rope-ladder or buttonhole techniques) is essential.
The purpose of the blood leak detector in the dialysis machine is to identify:
Answer: Blood crossing from the blood compartment into the dialysate
The blood leak detector monitors dialysate effluent using optical sensors to detect hemoglobin, indicating a ruptured dialyzer membrane allowing blood to enter the dialysate compartment.