IV catheter changes..

[RNnewbie2014]

I was asked 2 days ago at my job if my school had stressed changing peripheral IVs every 96 hours.. I do not recall this being emphasized... What is the EBP about this? I mean of course I know if a patient is experiencing infiltration or phlebitis, I am going to change it... But other than that I was JW is there hard evidence that changing a peripheral IV every 96 hours is appropriate?

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

The train of thought is similar to receiving blood draw tubes from another facility that were sent with the patient. In order to use them, you'd have to trust that those were, in fact, properly drawn and are actually that patient's blood and not someone else's sent by mistake.

You have to trust that no matter where the blood comes from, right? A floor nurse can mislabel specimens just as easily as, say, a home health nurse could. Having previously been a floor nurse and now being a home health nurse, anecdotally I'd say I saw more mis-labeled specimen errors IN the hospital. In the hospital, labels for different patients are flying around and people are so rushed that they often don't label the specimen at the point of care. In the home, I draw the blood and label it before I leave/in front of the patient. I don't have pre-printed labels and have to write each patient's name on each individual tube.

[Loo17]

You have to trust that no matter where the blood comes from, right? A floor nurse can mislabel specimens just as easily as, say, a home health nurse could. Having previously been a floor nurse and now being a home health nurse, anecdotally I'd say I saw more mis-labeled specimen errors IN the hospital. In the hospital, labels for different patients are flying around and people are so rushed that they often don't label the specimen at the point of care. In the home, I draw the blood and label it before I leave/in front of the patient. I don't have pre-printed labels and have to write each patient's name on each individual tube.

Yes but you don't know what other facilities policies are or what training they provide to their staff.

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

You have to trust that no matter where the blood comes from, right? A floor nurse can mislabel specimens just as easily as, say, a home health nurse could. Having previously been a floor nurse and now being a home health nurse, anecdotally I'd say I saw more mis-labeled specimen errors IN the hospital. In the hospital, labels for different patients are flying around and people are so rushed that they often don't label the specimen at the point of care. In the home, I draw the blood and label it before I leave/in front of the patient. I don't have pre-printed labels and have to write each patient's name on each individual tube.

Yes but you don't know what other facilities policies are or what training they provide to their staff.

Precisely. Also, usually one facility has no ability to provide direct clinical oversight of another facility or its staff. Same issue occurs in the prehospital setting, unless the ambulance personnel are directly employed by the facility.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

In the hospital, labels for different patients are flying around and people are so rushed that they often don't label the specimen at the point of care.

In the ER especially. You have 5 patient's worth of lab stickers print out at once. Sometimes a patient was lined/labbed before the stickers printed and the tubes were't labeled, some nurses will bring the tubes out and then grab the stickers and label the tubes outside of the room .

Sometime EMS will draw blood when they start a line, then bring in unlabeled tubes…I know they are just trying to help up out, but how do I know that isn't blood from the last patient in the truck?