Respiratory Therapists Inserting PICC Lines

[Asystole RN]

Here in Arizona several of the hospitals have started an experiment, they are actively replacing PICC nurses with RTs and calling them "Vascular Access Specialists." These RTs will place PICC lines, midlines, and US guided PIVs. My local INS chapter has not issued an official statement about this and my local AVA chapter is fully supporting this with about half of the members being RTs.

Any thoughts on this? Has anyone seen this in any other State?

[provas]

I have found in the hospital setting that NURSING specialties are being combined. From a business practice, you get more bang for the buck. From a nurses standpoint, the facility is expecting you to exhibit the best practice in dual fields. That is why I work as an independent contractor. I like the idea of a PICC team availability 24/7. It's best for the patients. No delay in treatment. I have found RT extremely competent. After all, it comes down to taking care of the patient.

[lovebeeinganurse]

Yes, indeed. The pt is the bottom line.

[Crick1210]

It's really sad that nurses won't accept the fact that RTs place lines, for example. The days of a picc nurse is over. They didn't place dialysis catheters, presep Caths, standard CVC, they only placed piccs . In our hospital witch is 850 beds the infection rate dropped down to .005%. Most of those infections came from outside facilities. And we have far less complications and infections than when nursing did simply picc lines. This should not be a war between RT and RN. As professionals we should embrace and encourage each other for the benefit of the PTs.

[Hbpenney]

This entire thread makes me incredibly frustrated, I am a RRT in a family of RN's, my husband, both my in-laws, my older sister and my aunt are all amazing practicing RN's across many different fields. I have a BRT from the university of Manitoba and a BSc. A growing population of schools in Canada now offer the RT programs as bachelor's degree and that is heading toward the standard for entry to practice. My husband and I went though our respective programs at the same time. He completed a BN, First year courses are similar, we took comparable anatomy and physiology courses, comparable pharmacology courses (with some obvious differences in depth in certain areas mine was more focused on respiratory, cardiac, anesthetic/sedative, analgesic and antibiotic medications and his more in-depth on medications most commonly seen in nursing, however still similar content with varying degrees of depth.) we Studied each others notes and drug cards. my lab setups were similar to his, but where he did psychomotor skills, wound care, and blood product administration we did difficult airway management, ventilator initiation and management ect. We both received relatively the same amount and depth of information on IV access, placement with roughly 12 hours of lab time devoted to mastering that skill. Our patient assessment courses were similar, however where he had an in-depth GI assessment my education was largely on in-depth cardiorespiratory assessment and rapid assessment skills. At the end of the day, both professions require a huge amount of difficult education, critical thinking skills and compassion. Our professions have a lot of overlap, but you undercut the value of well trained RT's when you put down the education that we receive. It is largely as difficult and as in-depth as an RN we just different areas of focus. New grads from an RT program have had more clinical hours (at least in Canada where our practicum year mandate is 1500) and have been exposed to a higher caliber of critically ill patients by comparison to a new grad BN as their training largely focuses on acutely ill patients. To misrepresent the profession as knob twisters and undereducated "techs" is incredibly frustrating to those of us who are incredibly capable and it largely comes from misinformation and ignorance. vasculature is largely connected with the circulatory system, vascular access is a skill we learn I see no reason why we would be any less qualified to insert a PICC line than an RN. I understand overlapping scopes of practice can be frustrating, we all want to do the maximum permitted i'm sure, and sharing the pie seems like a scary thing. I am fully aware that with extra training there are very few things in my scope an RN could not be trained to do, but that goes both ways, with some extra training I am sure there are many things in an RN's scope that RT's could do. It's lovely that you could do every job, the question then becomes why would you want to? Threads like this only add fuel to the hostility between our two professions, so perhaps instead of insulting RT's embrace that you now find yourself with a deeper bench of people to call upon if heaven forbid you find yourself having trouble. Healthcare is a team spot and as such there isn't a lot of room for people determined to be small minded and possessive.

H.P.

BSc, BRT, RRT

[diffNtheSAMe]

Im just going to say this!!! being in both fiels RT and nursing when will the battle and control stop? im not here to take anyones position im here to do what my licesne allows me to do!!! Ill have you know I learned just about everything a nurse did (not as extensive in medications/gtts) including, line placements, balloon pumps, etc., but in nursing school we spent what a week on vents and didn't learn any details, and I was fine with that! I have enough to handle as an RN I appreciate my RTs. RT license are covered for those placements and just like a nurse an RT has to meet the requirements/accreditation/certifications to place a picc line, arterial line or manage a balloon pump. I don't care who places them as long as they have been trained and licensed to do so. So why cant an RT place a picc line or Art line? WHY!! because you feel threatened or but that's a nurses job? well wake up its also a specialty postion some don't even require a RN or RT lic. learn to work with each other, learn to realize everyone is here to help the nurses but there focus is something other then administering meds, cleaning wounds,vitals/labs, bathing etc! its whomever wants to do the job and meets those requirements., let RT's use there license to there full ability and learn to respect each other and stop with the power trips!

[diffNtheSAMe]

excuse my grammar and spelling I was typing fast lol

[diffNtheSAMe]

thank you I didn't even skim to the bottom of this thread to see your comment I was to botherd about the power trip and constant miss understanding of the education an RT has.