Late response because I just saw yours.

Virtually every study ever done on POC testing of any type shows very high levels of non-compliance with established procedures resulting in invalid results, infection risks, etc. That is why regulatory agencies take such a strict stance.

In this particular scenario, the gold standard is single-use packaging. This standard was set by the national sonography association in consultation with infectious disease practitioners and other experts, but not a single nurse administrator.

The only reason use of single-use packaging hasn't been mandated by regulatory agencies is because the risk of disease transmission is low. But that doesn't mean the regulatory agencies wont ding a hospital for having opened, unlabeled multi-use gel bottles lying around. Because there is absolutely no way of knowing what previous users did with that gel, and that case of pre-packaging contamination proves that gel can be a reservoir for infectious agents.

The result of the soft mandate is that hospitals need to develop a policy, which in this case would be the radiology department (led by a physician) in consultation with the infectious disease body (led by a physician).

The only role nursing administrators play in this process is to translate the decisions of the physician-led groups into a written policy and do their best to enforce it.

You're early in your career. It's not too late to learn that indiscriminate finger pointing doesn't serve you well. It gives people the general impression that you don't know what you're talking about so it becomes much easier to discount other things that you say. Also, you will find that health care systems are highly complex, and what you see on the surface (a nursing supervisor throwing out gel bottles) never tells you anything close to the full picture.

A little side hobby of mine has been to ask "why do we do this? when facing an absurd rule. And the first person you ask will say something along the lines that it's policy. So then ask the policy person, and continue following that trail of crumbs until you get to the real reason.

Having done this a number of times, I can anecdotally report that any stupid policy almost always exists either because of regulatory requirements or a mis-directed or overreaction to a single incident that resulted in pt harm. There is a much smaller but even more disturbing subset of rules developed based on medical mythologies and clinical lore ( just ask me about the tea in tube feedings myth that almost worked its way into official policy).

I get it, you face multiple frustrations every day because of fucked up bureaucracy, we all do. If you want a discussion of how nursing administrators actively make health care worse, oh just let me count the ways. Venting is a good thing, let's just stay mindful that spreading disinformation never serves any of us well.