arterial lines 101

Specialties Critical

Published

Hello,

I encountered a patient with an arterial line while shadowing a nurse on ICU during clinical. Observed as she took a blood draw from the line and saw how careful she was in maneuvering the stopcocks. Why does a pt need an arterial line? And how long can it stay in w/o risk of infection? Was curious on the topic, but didn't want to bombard the nurse with all my questions during her shift :)

Next time, ASK THE QUESTIONS! Your entire purpose for being there was to learn!

Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

Arterial lines are for wo things mainly: blood pressure monitoring, and for patients who need frequent blood draws. Any patient on more than a small amount of any vasoactive drip really needs to have an a-line for proper BP management – if they’re sick enough to be put in the unit and need pressors, then they’re sick enough for an a-line. Non-invasive automatic blood pressure cuffs are useful, but if a person is labile.... an a-line is necessary.

Certain situations absolutely require an a-line for BP monitoring: any use of any dose of nipride, for example. This is a truly powerful drug – it works very quickly, and your patient can rapidly get into all sorts of trouble unless you’re monitoring BP continuously.

Thanks for the info, was just curious about the uses for arterial lines and situations that would require a pt to have one. So now i know they are mostly used for shock, monitoring effects of inotropic drugs, and for monitoring ABGs.

Specializes in critical care.

While there is the risk of infection with any invasive catheter, an a-line is less likely to get infected than a central line. Generally the patient no longer needs the a-line or it stops working before you are worried about it being in for too long. I'd say most a-lines in my unit stay in for 2-5 days.

Some of my biggest fears in nursing are forgetting to remove a tourniquet and leaving a stopcock turned the wrong way!

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