Syringe Pumps and central lines

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Specializes in Internal Medicine.

Hi,

I am an internal medicine nurse from Canada and have a question regarding hooking syringe pumps (mini-infusers) directly to various central lines. We use ports, triple lumen CVLs (IJ's/subclavians/femorals), PICCs, tunneled lines, PICCs and dialysis catheters (we call them VAS caths) on the ward. My question is does your hospital have a policy regarding connecting microbore tubing on the syringe pumps (we use the Excelsior, but I assume they are mostly similar) to various CVADs/CVLs? When we began using these pumps no policy was developed. The questioned raised was "What happens when the syringe is finished and the line is just sitting there with no positive pressure or heparin flush applied?" "Is there an increased risk for thrombus formation?" It seems especially an issue with our dialysis caths as there are no injection ports and they are connected directly to the IV tubing. I was hoping someone had a policy regarding when a primary line is necessary so the syringe pump can be connected to this primary that will run at TKO until we are ready to disconnect and when it is OK to just hook a syringe pump directly to a CVL. I am welcoming general discussion on this as well even if you do not have a policy to offer.

TIA,

Brenda

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