How to prevent PICC line from moving during dressing change?

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in Medicine.

Anyone have any tips on how to prevent PICC line from moving during a dressing change? At my facility where I work, PICC lines are NOT secured with a statlock nor are they sutured into place (by reading through some posts here, I see that some facilities do either). The PICC line is just covered by a chlorhexadine tegaderm, and I worry about possibly moving the PICC line too much during a dressing changed considering that there is nothing to secure it into place.

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Specializes in Hospice + Palliative.

in facilities i've worked in they have always been sutured in, but I still make it part of my practice to anchor the catheter under the skin with my thumb just above the edge of the tegaderm so that as I am removing the dressing I am holding the line in place.

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You may get some good responses in the neonatal/NICU forum since a lot if their PICCs aren't stat locks/sutured.

if you have chlorahexadine stick swabs, I've seen nurses kind of hold the PICC in place with that.

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Specializes in Medicine.

Yesterday I tried what you guys suggested and I changed a PICC dressing successfully on my patient with no movement of the PICC :) Thanks

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