Is anyone aware of recent articles or studies suggesting it may not be necessary to pre flush a VAD with saline before with draw of a blood specimen? If so, would you be so kind as to reference the article name and author. Thank you very much!
Laura
Is anyone aware of recent articles or studies suggesting it may not be necessary to pre flush a VAD with saline before with draw of a blood specimen? If so, would you be so kind as to reference the article name and author. Thank you very much!
Laura
You wouldn't want to flush with saline just prior to withdrawing blood for a lab sample as that will contaminate the sample. You should follow flushing and blood return assessment recommended frequency which means at some point prior to withdrawing a blood sample the patency of line will have been assessed, but I'm not sure what the advantage flushing just prior to a blood draw would be.
I usually flush with 10 ml NSS and draw back my blood waste of 3-5 ml and discard. Then attach the vacutainer adapter with test tube to obtain speciman.
Several CVADs have an integral valve [eg Groshong, PASV and SOLO]
I have found that flushing these catheters with NS prior to blood withdrawl improves the catheters functionality
The valve opens and closes more smoothly facilitating the withdrawl process
In any case I would not want to place an empty syringe on the catheter hub if I had not confirmed a blood return first
Robbin George RN VA-BC
Robbin George RN VA-BC