How long is a spiked IV bag good?

[BinkieRN]

Our floor has decided that it's cheaper to hang a 500 cc NS bag in the med room, it is spiked, has tubing about 2 feet long and on the end of the tubing there a connector where you can screw on a 20cc luer lock syringe and easily fill the syringe to use as a flush. So the whole system is closed. How long would you think those fluids are good for? Some say one thing some say another.

[Andie13RN]

I would never do that and report those genious ¬¬

[class 5]

A spiked IV bag must be changed every 24hours..the tubing is usually good for 72 hours...

[emnicams]

We do that at my facility. The bags are changed q 12 hours (q shift).

[class 5]

To clarify my response(I didn't read the ques..fully) I have never seen a facility do what you are describing that they do for a flush!!!I strongly suggest that you do not do that..You never want to draw your flush that way ,the contamination risk is very high!! and I would be written up had I ever gotten caught doing that....joint com..would surely not condone that practice..Originally I thought the ques. was about hanging iv fluids on a patient..my first ans.addressed that.... but the flush for all to use is not wise..

[kstec, LPN]

When I worked in pharmacy we drew up 5cc syringes of 1/2 and 1/4 strength NS for NICU. The syringes were good for one month in the refrigerator. This is still a common practice for NICU. As for NS on regular floors we started years ago sending up individually prepackaged syringes in boxes of 100 from a company, also with heparin, the 10ut/ml and 100ut/ml. But I do remember years ago before getting prefilled syringes, the nursing units did have a communial(sp) bag of NS with a spike or tubing where they drew up their flushes as needed. I worked in pharmacy at a hospital for 14 years, so a lot of things changed. I'm no longer there, but I do know they use prefilled NS for adults. I also know that premade IV's straight from the company can hang for 72 hours, but IV's mixed by pharmacy were only good for 24 hours except for epidurals, they too were good for 72 hours.