What is required for IV therapy team?

[queen esther]

I would like to know what is required for joining an IV therapy team. Please tell me if one has to be certified, experienced, etc.

[Chuckie]

Our IV Team only does starts and restarts. That is it we are not allowed to call them in any outpatient setting. Oncology does it's own port access and dressing changes, they do all there own lab draws. ICU does all there own IV's and central line care. L & D does all there own IV starts. LPN's are allowed on the team. The IV team only get called on hard starts on medical and surgical floors. They complain every time they are paged. They act like the floor nurses are idiots for calling and treat all other employees as second class citizens. They complain about having to carry a beeper and that they do not get lunch because they have to carry a beeper for there full shift even during lunch, Yet they are able to sit in the cafeteria for long periods of time waiting for the beepers to go off. Most often you hear that anyone can start and IV or learn to start an IV. This is true anyone can be trained to start an IV. Unfortunately floor nurses have minimal time to do these practices so we have IV nurses that do nothing but IV's. They stand outside the room waiting for the floor nurse to clean a patient before entering to start an IV.

I feel many hospitals with IV teams could make better use of a nurse in addition to IV starts. They could do other nursing skills, conscious sedation antibiotic therapy, blood products, or many other things. Not just IV nurse.

[suzanne4, RN]

Depends on the facility, as well as patient population. In many facilites, these nurses are the ones that insert PICC lines, so certification would be needed in this area. And excellent IV starting skills is also a necessity... :)