Q: The standards state that a new VAD should be used with each attempt. My question is what defines a second attempt when inserting a PICC. For example if you have a sterile field set up and you have tried to insert the catheter at one site and you move to a more proximal site on…
January 25 this year and every year on this day is a day to celebrate IV Nurse Day!!In 1980, the professional practice of infusion nursing was formally recognized when the United States House of Representatives declared each January 25 as IV Nurse Day. This recognition was the beginning of what the infusion specialty has become.…
I’m sure you’ve seen and used one as a common tool to assess clinician skills in a simulated training environment. There are different PIV checklists used by various healthcare facilities but it is difficult to locate validated checklists to measure practicing clinician PIV insertion skill due to a lack of validity and reliability evidence to…
This is an updated version of the 2014 publication. The current update (2016) adds 34 drugs, five of which have safe-handling recommendations from the manufacturers. Hazardous drugs include those used for cancer chemotherapy, antiviral drugs, hormones, some bioengineered drugs, and other miscellaneous drugs. This document presents criteria and sources of information for determining whether a drug is…
In case you missed it, the Infusion Nurses Society (INS) has published an updated position paper on The Role of Unlicensed Assistive Personnel (UAP) in the Provision of Infusion Therapy. UAP is the common term used to describe the various assistive personnel to whom physicians, RNs, and other health care professionals may delegate patient care activities,…
Today our nation marks the 15th year anniversary of the attacks on 9/11 in NYC, DC and Pennsylvania. That was a day no one would ever forget. We will always be grateful to the courageous firefighters, rescuers and first responders who risked their lives to save those in the rumbles of this dreadful day. We…
Q: I am a staff nurse doing home infusion. I’ve seen an increase in new home patients requiring infusions of Remicade and Entyvio this year.I have a patient to start soon and I have found no evidence on how safe these drugs are if administered at home. They are given in a doctor’s office where…
Yeah, this post is about gloves. I’m going to revisit this…not wearing gloves when starting a peripheral IV.. Then there’s the extreme, when healthcare providers wear gloves for everything like taking your blood pressure and temperature!! (save this for another time) We should all know about Universal Precautions, right? It has been around since 1983,…
Wishing everyone who celebrate a Happy 4th of July! I’m proud and grateful to call this great country my home. Have a safe and fun celebration.
Q: I saw the practice recommendation to limit tourniquet time to less than 1 minute when drawing blood to reduce hemolysis and inaccurate chemistry lab values. Once we stick and get a blood return, we wait till we’ve collected all our blood samples before we release the tourniquet and apply the dressing to the IV…
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