For those of you that have changed your practice to only changing peripheral IV sites when clinically indicated, how often are you changing your "add on device" (extension set) on those IV catheters that pt. are receiving intermittent medications and are "saline locked". Are you doing any dressing changes(and site care) to these sites at regular intervals or do you leave the initial dressing on for the entire time?
We are in our first month of our trial and on one unit, just this week, we have had 4 iv's in for 9-11 days without any complications.
WOW - your nurses are doing something right! The vast majority of SPC do not last longer than 48 hours. Those who worry about SPC change based on clinical indicattions rather than a specific number of hours are thinking that the majority of catheters will have an extended dwell time. This is just not the case because so many of them fail so quickly probably due to inappropriate site selection, lack of catheter stablization, incorrect infusion techniques, etc. 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
Well done!
The add on device is something I had not considered. With catheters like Nexiva, Intima, and NovaCath the extensions are part of the catheter unit so good question. The dressing change and site care is a whole new discussion as well. This is going to be interesting.