The INS standards are telling us NOT to do this, but we have a patient and an MD who insists that we are to use her porta cath for therapeutic phlebotomy. I searched this forum and the last post was in 2011. What is everyone seeing now? Is this becoming a practice?
The INS standards reflect what we found in our exhaustive literature searches on all issues. We could not make any statements about this procedure from an implanted port because at that time there was no evidence to use as the basis for such a standard. There may be something available now, so I would also recommend that you do a literature search to see what you can find. Go back to Jan. 2010 in this search to allow some time for overlap between when we would have finished our searching for the standards. Lynn
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, BC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
126 Main Street, PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
Website http://www.hadawayassociates.com
Office Phone 770-358-7861