My Pet-Peeve - Priming IV's

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Okay here it is, to all you Nurses out there who are guilty of doing this!!!!!

IV lines do have a volume, it is printed on the bag when you first open it, it's called the Priming Volume. When you are the first nurse to hang a 100cc bag of antibiotics, and it takes 10cc's to prime the line, do not put 100cc's as the VTBI!!!!!

I'm always having to go around and chance out IV lines that have sucked air in them and because of that are driving my pumps crazy!!!!!

Thanks for listening, I needed to get this out of my system. I have bit my tounge for the last 4 years, lol.

(I'm really not pissed off, just anoyed ;))

Well seems some nurses wayyyyyyyy overprime or perhaps the overfill isnt that much for everybag. And the idea of the 250cc NS primary, I've worked with nurses that did that and simply had the NS flush for them but it seems like alot of waste and if ya just learn how to prime and set ur pump there isnt a issue.

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Specializes in ER, SANE, Home Health, Forensic.

Oh thank goodness I am not the only one who gets frustrated with this...

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Specializes in SICU.

I don't run into this a lot. In our ICU we use NS as a primary at a KVO rate and hang the abx as secondaries.

I WOULD be totally irritated if I had to deal with that on a regular basis.

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Specializes in Infection Preventionist/ Occ Health.

Our pumps have sensors, so we are not required to set a volume to be infused. The pump beeps and we get paged when the bag is empty; there are no issues with air in the lines this way. If we run antibiotics as secondary, it's on a syringe pump with the line bifused or alligator clipped into the primary line.

It would drive me crazy if I had to deal with lines going dry all day!

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Specializes in Spinal Cord injuries, Emergency+EMS.
I don't run into this a lot. In our ICU we use NS as a primary at a KVO rate and hang the abx as secondaries.

I WOULD be totally irritated if I had to deal with that on a regular basis.

another issue with this can be getting it prescribed ( and one would assume billed for) - we work on the basis of the prescription for the antibiotics covers the standard ways of giving it - some of my colleagues nver bolus anything , most of us bolus stuff that's simple to bolus and not likely to be a problem ...

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Specializes in Psych, Med/Surg, Home Health, Oncology.

We always hang a 250 ml bag of NS on pt's receiving antibiotics and run it at either 5 or 10 ml/hr. Then the antibiotic is run as a secondary.

It works well for us.

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Specializes in ER/Trauma.

I almost always back prime.

The times I don't are when I have to infuse abx through syringe pumps - in which case I have a bag of NS running at TKO.

Dry lines drive me crazy too! LOL. Such a pain in the butt to remove the whole shebang and re-prime!

cheers,

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