This practice would be in direct conflict with the INS standards of
practice. This set would be an intermittent set, therefore it should
be changed every 24 hours according to the INS standards of practice.
CDC guidelines states this is an unresolved issue. There are
absolutely no studies that have looked at the use, change interval or
anything regarding sets used for intermittent infusion. This is the
reason for the INS standard of changing every 24 hours. You are
manipulating both ends of the set frequently. Based on principles of
basic infection control and in the absence of any studies, it seems
wise to follow the standards. One the other hand, your facility could
do a study of this practice and publish your findings which would
benefit everyone. Also, the INS standards apply to all settings.
While primary and secondary sets should be changed no more frequently
than 72 hours, INS separates the intermittent sets and this would
apply to both inpatient and outpatient settings.
One other thought is that you would need to have a foolproof method
to make sure that the right set gets hooked back to the right patient
each day. I can imagine lots of cross-contamination between patients
if they were to get mixed up. With busy, understaffed units, I can
easily see this happening. Lynn
At 7:50 PM -0400 5/15/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
To reduce cost a suggestion was made to reuse the IV tubing for
72hours on a patient that comes in for daily infusion. The patient
would have a PICC and come for maybe daily abx's. The infusion is
done the tubing flushed with NS, disconnected from the PICC and a
sterile cap placed on the IV tubing. It is stored in the med room
and used by the same pt for 3 infusions.
We have been discarding the tubing daily and replacing with new IV
tubing daily.
Any support for or against this suggested practice. P&P is for
tubing change 72 hrs but that was written for inpt
Thanks
Pat Dobson
--
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
