At every INS Annual Meeting, the exhibit hall is the one of the highlights of the week. I am very grateful to all the vendors who were there whether they had something new to show or not because their products contribute greatly to patient care and safety. Their willingness to educate nurses is always appreciated.…
1. The ASHP Guidelines on Home Infusion Pharmacy Services – defines the role of the pharmacist in providing home infusion care to patients and to outline minimum requirements (indicated by use of the word “shall”) and best practices for the operation and management of services provided by pharmacies in the home or alternate-site setting. Home…
There is a great resource available to nurses and other healthcare providers. It is the SPC insertion guide card deck. The Short Peripheral Catheter (SPC) Insertion Card Deck provides step-by-step instruction for successful venipuncture in children and adults. The deck highlights proper site selection, insertion techniques, as well as care and maintenance methods. It also…
This great resource in available free to download to INS members from the INS website – SPC Checklist. SPC means short peripheral catheter, which man y of us call “peripheral IV catheter” or “PIV”. This checklist was part of the IV Safety Task Force position paper project on Recommendations for Improving Safety Practices for Short…
In June of 2013, I was honored to chair a national task force for the Infusion Nurses Society’s (INS) project on Short Peripheral Catheter Safety (SPC). Along with five other colleagues, we embarked on a task to identify the safety and practice issues and look at ways to promote safety in the insertion and management…
Q: Can medical assistants in office based infusion settings insert peripheral IVs and administer IV medications? A: This is a question I get weekly. I have posted a previous blog about this topic and replied privately to individuals asking the question. But I think it’s time to post my response again: Medical assistants (MAs)as defined…
This is the part of the INS Annual meeting that I always look forward to. I am very grateful to all the vendors who were there whether they had something new to show or not because their products contribute greatly to patient care and safety. Their willingness to educate nurses is always appreciated. Just like…
I get questions from colleagues on social networks, while I don’t post all of the questions , there are times when I do post for learning purposes. Here’s one on “syringe re-use”. Q: It boggles my mind, how someone highly trained, a nurse, can use a single use syringe over and over and sometimes on multiple patients.…
A nurse colleague started a new job as an infusion nurse for a physician office based practice offering infusion services (non chemo) to their patients. After a few days, the nurse left the new job for the following reasons: Another RN in the office routinely mixes IV medication for the infusion nurses to administer. The IV medication…
I have now confirmed my blog readers are not only healthcare providers but are ‘actual’ patients. I get questions/emails/comments from them and they made it known to me that they are watching and noticing what we do to their venous access!! LOL.. So in the spirit of sharing and learning, without revealing anything about them,…
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