Blood comparability

[BKingRn]

Quick question.

Can you y-site FFP or platelets and PRBC through a peripheral IV. I can't find anything that says no. To me, logic says yes because they are both blood components and should be comparable, but nurses tend to freak out when they see something new or unusual, so I thought I would ask on here before asking my fellow ICU nurses. I have done it in CVICU but CVICU is a different world. I have also done it in mass tramsfusions before. But let's just say I'm a normal transfusion situation.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

That is the point. We would never run them at the same time. There would be no way to determine which product was causing the reaction.

Babies are different -- you probably don't even run a whole unit into a baby because they can't take the volume.

Sometimes, in CVICU where the patient is bleeding liters/hour, you have no choice but to run multiple blood products at the same time. I can't say I've ever Y'd them into a peripheral IV, but I certainly have into central lines with a PA at the bedside squeezing both bags into the patient as rapidly as possible while an MD stands on the other side of the bed squeezing in two more bags and begging the surgeon to come take a look. I think the biggest danger would be to your peripheral line . . . but I'm sure you'd have more than one in a situation like that.