Vanco trough

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I had a pt with a double lumen picc. 1 lumen running tpn and the second TKO with a few antibiotics including vancomycin.  Do you treat the PICC as 2 different lines? Does it matter if an antibiotic is not compatible with tpn but is running in the other lumen? And can you draw a vanco trough from the PICC? Sorry they really didn't teach us this stuff in nursing school. Thanks!

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Specializes in Med surg.

Yes with a double lumen they don’t have to be compatible..

where I work we do not routinely draw blood from a picc. If your policy is such that you can, you can draw a Vanco trough the same as any other blood draw. 

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Thank you. One of the charge nurses said you can't draw it if it's a line that vanco was running in.  Questions like this are really hard to find in our policies or procedures, as wouldn't know what to search. 

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Specializes in Physiology, CM, consulting, nsg edu, LNC, COB.

You can draw it from the non-TPN line, but not WHILE the vanco is running, LOL. Besides, a trough level is drawn just before the dose (trough meaning, "So we can find out what the level is at its lowest possible point"), and peak is drawn 1 hour after the dose is completed.

A double lumen line is like two garden hoses taped together. Their contents don't mix.

Mot places absolutely forbid blood draws from TPN lines anyway, because of the increased risk of infection in such yummy contents for bacteria and fungi.

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