calistami

Thanks guys. Makes sense now, but none of us working that shift had had this happen before and I guess in the heat of the moment, the nurse who found the situation just kind of did what came naturally. We did call the doctor immediately and get their ideas on what to do. I appreciate the feedback.

I never thought about this. We waste into the sink most times, occasionally into the garbage. For those of you whose facilities use the sharps container, I'm guessing it's only used for pills/capsules and not liquids? Slightly related, I always wonder how you are supposed to get rid of unused medications at home. I mean, most of us don't have sharps containers, and they say not to throw them away but also not to flush them. What do you all do?

Hey! I have a question for experienced nurses and central line experts. A patient (a very active sleeper) somehow got their PICC line cap and T-connector unhooked from the PICC itself while asleep so that the PICC itself was open to air, and the patient also bled from the line, of course; when discovered, the line/site was cleaned vigorously & a new set-up was applied, the PICC still gave great blood return and flushed fine. It's unknown how long this was unhooked, although the max would be a little less than 2 hours (the last time the patient was checked before this was discovered.) Very scary. Physician was notified, new orders etc. I guess I have two questions: How long does it sound like this line was open for, considering that it flushed without any problem, and was not hep-locked at the time of the incident (had IVF running which obviously became unhooked when the set-up came unhooked), or does that not have any bearing on the issue? It also didn't SEEM like there was a lot of IVF that had run into the floor, but that is very hard to gauge I guess. Also, if the patient were going to get some kind of infection from this situation, how long before they'd likely start showing symptoms?