IV Nurse?

[dustbuster]

This may sound like a dumb question, but what exactly does a home health IV nurse clinician do? Is it just a matter of just hanging IVs all day? I am good with inserting IVs and would love to be an IV nurse in the hospital setting, but I am guessing one would not be doing that in home health and that the two jobs are probably very different. Can anyone shed some light on this issue and does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

[KateRN1]

You can check out the Infusion Nurses Society webpage for more information than you problably want. It involves more than just starting IVs, although that is a part. Most pts come out of the hospital with PICCs or ports these days, depending on their disease process, so you have to know and be comfortable with all the protocols involved in those. You have to be able to troubleshoot the different kinds of pumps used in the home setting. You have to be able to hang gravity drips, teach pts and family members how to do all these things, and many times you have to do OASIS data sets, just like regular home health. That's the short version.

[iluvivt, BSN, RN]

I am a hospital IV and PICC nurse and I work a per diem home health IV nurse. You get patients that need home IV therapy...such as abx ,Tpn,IVIG,remicade. PCA . chemo,some blood products....line care...all IV stuff. There is a lot of teaching involved.......so if a patient is going home with a PICC on 6 weeks of abx say for a osteomyelitis...you open the case...instruct the patient and or caregiver on all the steps to safely and aseptically administer the prescribed abx. You show them how to do it..by demonstrating and then they give a return demonstration...sometimes you can use a dummy bag......and sometimes you get lucky and the med is due and you can show them....they must also know how to flush whatever VAD they have and assess it for s/sx of any complications. Usually the RN performs the dsg change on the VAD and port access. I have seen a lot of moms access their childrens ports though. The patient and/or caregiver must be deemed competent before they can be let loose...so to speak. Often they will need a follow-up teaching visit. With some infusions..you generally stay for the entire infusion and monitor for hypersensitivity reaction...for example..IVIG and Remicade. Those are just a few examples