Feeding tubes (FTs) are commonly used for nutritional support and medication delivery in acutely and critically ill patients. Verification of physiologic positioning, known as placement verification, of FTs is an important concern for bedside practitioners. Unintended gastric FT placement or postplacement prepyloric migrations can increase the risk of aspiration and related negative clinical sequelae. Therefore, postpyloric FT placement may be indicated to promote patient safety. However, accurate determination of FT location within the gastrointestinal tract is limited by low-accuracy verification methods, lack of knowledge related to FT migration, and lack of evidence to support the frequency of FT placement verification. Verifying FT placement every 4 hours is a common practice with an unknown rationale. Electromagnetic placement devices (EMPDs) may assist bedside practitioners in efficiently verifying the accuracy of initial FT placement and subsequently verifying FT location.

These authors conducted a prospective, longitudinal repeated-measures cohort study to evaluate the frequency of...

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