Heparin Locks/Flushes

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I've worked in NICU for a while now, this is my fourth job in NICU. This is the first one where heparin flushes and locks are used. Isn't this really outdated? I'm curious to know how many of you are using them in your units. And if you think its outdated? I think it is dangerous!

We also never help lock a line. Any kind of central line will have KVO fluids running, it's usually D5w with 1:1 hep, going at 0.3 or 0.5 ml/hr. Our PIVs are saline locked.

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My unit just rolled out new order sets and we are no longer using heparin in peripheral sites :) I had a question though about frequency...we're used to flushing HLs and unused ports on PICCs and UVCs q 3-4 hrs with hands on times. Now we're supposed to saline lock our HLs q6, heplock our PICCs q 4 and heplock our UVCs q 12....is this close to what is being done on other units?

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

We only use saline on peripherals. We run a KVO thru our central lines if we don't need them for fluids. We had too many lines clot even with the flushes, and it minimized the number of times we access the line.

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