Question : Blood Draw

[NurseEPV]

How do you Draw Blood from Picc line?

[MelissaRN]

First you have to check with your hospital's policy and procedure manual. They should give you an inservice before you do them on your own.

Where I work you flush the line with about 2 CC's NS, pull back 2 CC's of blood to discard and then with another syringe pull back the blood you need and transfer the blood to the tubes you need. After collecting the blood you flush the line with NS (two 10 cc syringes). Check your policy manual though because I know some hospitals use heparin to flush, but you can use either one. Also with PICC lines you can't use the vacutainer devices. You have to draw back the blood and then attach the vacutainer to the syringe and then transfere the blood to the tubes. Oh yea and only use 10 cc syringes don't use smaller syringes, at least that was what I was told.