Swabcaps

[student_nurse101]

I am a nursing student and just a little confused from what I see in the hospital and what I'm told in school so I'm hoping I can get some clarification on this issue.

In this hospital where we do our clinicals they use swabcaps (the pre-alcoholed caps). I have seen some of the nurses attach these swabcaps to the IV tubing after disconnecting it from the pt's IV port while they went for testing or ... They then hang the IV tubing on the IV pole until the pt comes back and the swabcap is removed and the tubing is reconnected after alcoholing off the port on the pt's INT. I was marked off for saying I would do this, is this something that should not be done?

[schnookimz]

What was your teacher's rationale? Perhaps she wants you to get a new cap and clean it again when the patient returns instead of using something that has been sitting open? That's my best guess.

[KittyLovinRN]

For the short period of time we used them (they showed no significant improvement in our CLAB rates) we only put them on the PICC/Subclavian/Port caps, I never saw them used on the actual IV tubing but that was just what I saw.

[student_nurse101]

I initially said there would be a swabcap on the end of the tubing or I would alcohol it off even though there was a little clear cap on it already, before connecting it to the INT because it was already there and I wasn't sure of what may have happened to the tubing or if the cap had been dropped and then placed on before I came into the situation. She said no you would not alcohol it off, her rationale was that I should have gotten new tubing if unsure and that it was a sterile cap on the tubing so I would never alcohol that end off.. So I said ok but what about the swabcap that I initially said I would have there and she just kind of wrote it off saying she does her research and that's pretty new...

I understand getting new tubing if there were no cap on at all and it was just hanging there open but I guess I was just trying to be safe and didn't think that warranted points being deducted.

[CrossCountryRN2008]

There are caps for the iv port and for the iv tubing. If they are the curos alcohol swabbed caps , you just remove the caps and connect the iv after flushing.

[Anna Flaxis, BSN, RN]

She is right. You do not alcohol swab the end of the IV tubing. When you disconnect it from the patient, you immediately place a sterile cap on it using a no-touch method. If the uncapped end of the tubing comes into contact with anything at all, you must replace the IV tubing with a new set. If unsure, act as if it is contaminated and replace with a new set.

[CrazierThanYou]

We use them at my hospital. A new one every time and no need to use an alcohol swab on a port after removing the cap.

[Rnis, BSN, DNP, APRN, NP]

We trialed them but we used them to clean the ports not to actually cap off the fluids I would only use a steril cap for that. They gost 20 cents a use and i was not convinced that that they were useful, if we did get them i would hope we would only used them on central lines.