Regardless of specialty, or certification, it appears to be an ambiguous issue that threatens continuity of patient care throughout the USA/world!
Standard of practice. INS, AVA ( when the best practice protocols are developed), CDC, ONS, Organizational policies and procedures, etc.
As VAS, we must adhere to what standards? This is very confusing!
You must rely upon ALL of them! The INS Standards committee worked extremely hard to communicate with all other organizations to reduce the number and types of conflicts between our documents. Current CDC is really too old to be of use and INS is represented on the HICPAC committee for the 2011 document. ONS has a small amount of overlap with INS but there is no conflicts that come to mind. These documents along with others from Joint Commission, SHEA, IDSA, ASPEN, ISMP, etc should all be used as resources to inform and write your organizational standards, which as known as polices, procedures, practice guidelines, protocols, etc. I was on the SHEA committee to revise the 2014 Compendium. I was also representing INS to an ISMP paper on IV push meds. So there really is not that much conflict between these documents anymore. 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
ONS and the JCAHO equivelent agency state that port access is performed as aseptic...not sterile therefore I question your statement that most are similar. How can there be 2 standards of care based on whether you practice in a community based outpatient oncology clinic or a hospital based outpatient infusion center (or home infusion company) Both follow INS but the former seem not to follow standards, as set forth in INS.
Erik Samarpan, RN, VA-BC, CLNC
[email protected]