Does your institution's IV team assess, photograph, provide treatment recommendations, and fill out the incident report if there is an extravasation? Or does your IV team just take the photograph at time of incident, 24, 48, 72, and 7 days post, and leave the rest for the staff RN to manage?
In my opinion (which is derived from being an expert on hundreds of lawsuits involving infiltraiton/extravasation), the infusion nurses will have the most knowledge about this, therefore they should be the ones doing this follow up monitoring and total management. There are 3 phases in dealing with any complication but it especially applies to this complication:
1. What was done to prevent the problem? usually means following the standards of praqctice
2. How quickly was this complication recognized?
3. Was the management appropriate and rapidly provided?
Those 3 phases are what I look at when reviewing medical records in a lawsuit and they can also be used to prevent and manage the complication and to structure staff development, regardless of which group is assigned the responsibility for this. 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