Central Lines: saline or heparin?

[nursemouse]

Help! What do you flush your basic, non-tunneled double or triple lumen central lines with? Our policy says heparin, most of our nurses are using saline, and much of the literature I've found supports saline. I'm trying to get a policy in place to support what our nurses are doing.

As an add-on, do you have any clotting problems with your central lines (particularly if you use saline)? Thanks! Nursemouse.

[HappyJaxRN]

Help! What do you flush your basic, non-tunneled double or triple lumen central lines with? Our policy says heparin, most of our nurses are using saline, and much of the literature I've found supports saline. I'm trying to get a policy in place to support what our nurses are doing.

As an add-on, do you have any clotting problems with your central lines (particularly if you use saline)? Thanks! Nursemouse.

For Central Lines we use 10cc saline. For PICC lines which is a central line we use the SASH method. That's 10cc saline, antibiotic (which is usually pain meds or whatever else), 10cc saline, 3cc heparin.

[ctunurse]

Our hospital policy is to flush all central lines first with 6cc of salin followed by 3cc of heparin @0800 and 2000 when not in use.