If a patient's K+ becomes elevated how does your unit deal with it? Do you do weekly labs for K+ and would you do them locally for this situation?

we do weekly K+, but send them out to our regular national lab setting. I have seen that the management of K+ is handled with a 'chronic' focus. In other words, weekly updates, education, referrals to dietitian, etc on an ongoing basis.

I have seen elevated K+ handled on an emergency basis, but this was only once, and it was due to hemolysis of the blood secondary to a graft failure. We initially thought the patient was being noncompliant with the diet because we had no other explanation for the slow steady rise in K+, but began to suspect something else was wrong when we communicated with the patient and they denied any change in diet. Surgical intervention fixed this situation.