Patient with a vas cath..........care question

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Specializes in Med Surg, Hospice, Home Health.

Admitted a patient with a right subclavian vas cath. She is getting dialysis 3x/week. I know we don't flush or anything like that, but do you all write, like you would any other invasive item....such as a peg tube.....to change the dressing if soiled, visualize and document site appearance each shift?

Also patient has a wound vac that is cared for by a home health agency (one of those dual billing things....), I need to write that patient has a wound vac, but indicating that home health writing orders and caring for item...

I'm just tired, I can't think well when I'm tired......2 admits last weekend and I have to turn in paperwork in am.

Thanks for your help!

linda

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.

Does your facility have a central line policy? You should check that out and see what it says about dressing changes. I would expect that the dialysis unit would be changing it as needed. The site should be visible if the dressing is a tranparent membrane type like Tegaderm or IV3000 and should be assessed q shift... It should definitely be labeled DO NOT FLUSH because there's enough heparin in each lumen to seriously harm your patient.

Specializes in Med Surg, Hospice, Home Health.

oh yeah, we would never flush a vas cath. it's one of those things, when i'm tired, i can't think straight............its just we have to visualize and document "no s/s infection...no redness, etc" if there were blood visible under the dressing or it looked "angry" we could change the tegadern and use alcohol/iodine swab to clean and apply a new tegaderm...

i've gotten some sleep....back to baseline. thanks again

linda

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