PICC dressing changes

I change the dressing alone on central lines, PICC dressings are done by IV team. On central lines as long as you observe sterile techinque and remember to use your mask and chase everyone else out of the room it's not hard, you just have to plan ahead to maintaine your sterile hand. Our IV nurses change PICC dressings alone too.

After masking ourselves and having the pt either mask or turn their head away, use clean gloves to remove the old dressing and assess the wound.

Wash hands again.

Then we use the "clean hand" "sterile hand" technique, ohbet. All the packages are opened on the sterile field. Then "sterile hand" does the touching of sterile materials; "clean hand" holds the line.

For pictures of this and many other procedures, I recommend Addison=Wesley PHOTO ATLAS OF NURSING PROCEDURES by Swearingen and Howard. ISBN #0-8053-8789-7

We use two people to change these. We are both masked and we use sterile technique.

Shygirl

Here's a good link with the procedure listed:

http://wahoo.utmb.edu/policy/nursing/search/07-02-21.pdf

Thank you,thank you