We are a small community hospital and there are only a few of us who place
PICCs, I am the only full time nurse. Along with IV therapy I also run the in
hospital outpatient infusion room administering antibiotics, IVIG, Blood
Transfusion, flush ports, draw labs from central lines on outpatients. We have
had to cut back on what we do on our floors. We are usually called for the
hard IV's. Our staff nurses are responsible for central line dressing changes
and administration of all meds via central lines. In the past year we had only
2 central line infections, none in PICC's and that includes our outpatient
PICC's. If your staff is educated properly in care of these lines and the
dressing changes you can prevent an infection.
Margaret M Nicastro, CRNI, OCN
Coorordinator IV Therapy/Oncology
Gettysburg Hospital
147 Gettys Street
Gettysburg, PA 17325
Phone: 717-337-4312
Fax: 717-337-4485
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Lynn Hadaway
Sent: Wed 2/8/2006 11:02 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: PICC infections
I also have some reservations about this issue of rates of PICC infection.
In my experience we had only IV nurses inserting and administering all IV
medications through the PICCs we inserted on the general med-surg units. ICU
did give their own meds. We had no documented PICC infections for about 10
years. Then the team was downsized and med administration went over to the
staff nurses, meaning many nurses had their hands on the PICC hubs now. And
they have seen a rise in PICC related infections. So there is a lot to the
point about not only who is inserting, but who is managing the hub
manipulation. Lynn
At 8:00 PM -0500 2/7/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I feel compelled to point out that not everyone has this infection
rate. Our current PICC infection rate is 0.57 incidents/1000 catheter days.
While this varies some, it rarely goes about 1.0/1000 days. This does not match
our CVC infection rate. We are not inclined to reduce PICC usage because of
this published data, because our facility data differs from that. If we were
seeing the same or higher infection rate with PICCs as short-term CVCs, it
would be cause for us to explore the sources of the problem, and consider the
wisdom of PICC usage.
Leigh Ann
--
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RNC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
126 Main Street, PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
http://www.hadawayassociates.com
office 770-358-7861
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:
This email may contain confidential health information that is legally
privileged. This information is intended for the use of the named
recipient(s). The authorized recipient of this information is prohibited from
disclosing this information to any party unless required to do so by law or
regulation and is required to destroy the information after its stated need has
been fulfilled. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified
that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or action taken in reliance on the
contents of this email is strictly prohibited. If you receive this e-mail
message in error, please notify the sender immediately to arrange disposition
of the information.
