Over-tightened blood line connection and sterile caps

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THE PROBLEM: Over-tightened or vaccume sealed blood line connections and sterile caps.

How does everyone deal with this issue? I have heard of several workarounds myself that include:

1. Two metal hemostats to crank the connection (could damage the cvc hub)

2. A glove wrapped around and using a wrench to unscrew the connection (could damage the cvc hub)

3. Sending the patient back to Interventional Radiology to have them remove the sterile caps.

Curious to see how others respond to this issue or if you ever run into it at all?

I am mainly gearing this towards Acutes, but I am sure it applies to the chronic as well.

Thanks!

-Brantley

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Specializes in Acute Dialysis.

Ive always used hemostats. Never damaged anything. I guess there’s a slight risk of damaging the hub but, that risk is out weighed by a delay of getting the treatment IMO.

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All of the above, and when that fails to work, I find one of the male ICU nurses to loosen them LOL (my unit is at the end of our ICU unit)

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Specializes in Dialysis.

Wiggle the cap back and forth. Perhaps putting ice around it to get the plastic to shrink a bit. Make sure your gloves are dry.

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Tourniquet wrapped around it for grip. If that doesn’t work then two pairs of hemostats. We only had this trouble occasionally until we switched to a new cap. Now it’s multiple times a day. We did not have this trouble when we trialed them. The manufacturer blames it on us not letting the alcohol dry. Utter BS. I have an in with someone at the company. What really happened is they changed the design to make them cheaper to produce. Now they air lock with the CVC hub like two glasses stuck together. ?

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Thanks for the response! Yeah I have heard sometimes the different caps make a slight difference.

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Thanks for the responses! Yeah I have heard sometimes the different caps make a slight difference.

I feel we need a dialysis tool that would give us grip and leverage on the caps and connections to avoid wasted time dealing with it!

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