IV's & PICC LINES

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

I am a RN. I was on a pm shift not long ago. I had to care for a patient who had a double lumen PICC line. He was also on several IV antibiotics. I can't remember the brand of the pump, but it takes PICC IV lines.

Anyway I had not used pumps or looked after PICC lines for a long time, so another nurse went through how to load the IV line through the machine & primed the line. That wasn't a problem. However she showed me how to flush the lumen with NS in a syringe, but then said after giving the IV ABs, to also flush the whole line. I understand why the whole line is flushed before & after, but when I asked why use a syringe as well I was told it was hospital policy. Also they were flushing 20mls of a 100ml bag of NS through the line, then re-using it. I didn't do that, I emptied the bag after 20mls had gone through. Also when I set the pump for 20mls to go through in 2 minutes, it seemed to take a long, long time (and I double-checked it was set to minutes, not hours).

My question is I still don't know how to use this pump, even though I watched the other RN do it. It had three lines on the monitor face where you punched in the mls to put through (say 100mls), then another line which no-one seemed to use, then the hours/minutes for the IV to be put through. I googled some stuff but there are 500,000 different pumps so I gave up. I couldn't ask a lot of questions cos it was so busy and the patient was really awful, nasty and cranky. Is there a website I can go to on flushing lines after IV AB's?

I am still scratching my head over this, and want to get answers before I have to look after another patient with the above.

What would you as an RN do? Any constructive advice is appreciated.

[sairin8]

Is there an opportunity to have a play with a pump not currently in use? That's what I generally prefer to do. Also, you could take note of the brand of pump and look that up

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

Is there an opportunity to have a play with a pump not currently in use? That's what I generally prefer to do. Also, you could take note of the brand of pump and look that up

Cos I go to different hospitals, I can't remember the brand of pump. Also some places like psych don't have pumps, and am usually too busy to play around with any. I will just have to ask for more info next time! (but the patient I had was really obnoxious and time got away - you know what it is like).

[carolmaccas66, BSN, RN]

I found out the pump was a PLUM-A brand. I got one of the other RNs - who is doing an IV course through RPH - to show me a bit about it. I had a bit of a play and if anyone needs info on different pumps & priming lines, go to You Tube, they have some good videos there (but I would always check what they teach on there is correct).

BTW I googled IV pumps and there are thousands of different types! Unbelievable...