Troubleshooting the IV line

[czarinariego201993]

Hi everyone I'm a fresh grad currently a nurse trainee and since the start of my exposure to different wards i have encountered patients who have either of the following problems:

a. Blood going up on the tubing near the iv cannula (which leads to the second problem)

b. formed fibrin on the tubing

c. Fluid not dripping on the drip chamber

in our institution we don't use infusion pumps except for Kcl and other emergency drugs. But for usual IV purposes we manually regulate our rates. Please tell me what could cause the following problems and how to troubleshoot them. Thank you so much your replies would be a great help.

[IVRUS, BSN, RN]

Yes, Blood backing up in the tubing can be a problem as it can potentially clot off your line. The fluid not dripping in the drip chamber can be caused by a variety of reasons:

1. Bag empty- DUH moment which we all have encountered.

2. A clamp remains closed.

3. The catheter is bent, or tubing pinched stopping flow.

4. An infiltrated or extravasation has occurred with an IV catheter.

Fibrin will quickly form at the catheter's tip, or intraluminally if the IV catheter is not flushed promptly once the infusion is complete, or the blood back up occludes the IV catheter.

One way of assisting your patient is to make sure that when they are ambulating, they do so with their arm folded to their chest. This may help with the blood back-up.

Not using a pump on IV medications can be problematic too as the infusion using gravity flow doesn't produce the needed PSI or "umphhhhhhhh" needed to infuse the medication especially in Central IV catheters.