Who Draws blood from a-lines??

[bran1101]

i have a question for all intensive care nurses. we are having a debate at the hospital i work at about who can draw blood from an arterial line. in our cardiac intensive care unit, they have in the past allowed the patient care techs to draw blood from a-lines. in the other adult icu's we feel that this is definately wrong and not even covered in the scope of practice of a pct. we have written to our state board of nursing to ask but are awaiting a reply. so i just wanted to get everyone else's opinion on this matter.

thanks!!

[Da_Milk_of_Amnesia, MSN]

When i did my externship before my senior year of nursing school, I worked in the CTICU (post-op CABG, valves etc) As a tech I was allowed to draw the blood and the ABG off the A-line. Anytime the RNs needed a gas I was allowed to draw them. In the CTICU and the ICU/CCU the techs are specialty techs and have a little more training than the regular PCTs.

[GIRLvsNSG]

hrrrm...doesn't sound like it should be part of their scope of practice. i worked as a tech on the unit i work at now as an RN (ms-icu), and several nurses taught me how to access art-lines, but it was in no way an expected duty. they allowed me to do it just so i would have the hands-on knowledge. however, i was our unit's only tech and i haven't been replaced since i switched roles. generally speaking, i would NOT want anybody besides another RN or and RT accessing my line.

[RN1980]

only rn's and resp. techs mess with our a-lines.

[detroitdano]

It's not rocket science and as long as they're properly swabbing the port and were trained in how to use them, I don't see the big deal.

Techs can stick a patient for labs, that involves swabbing something with alcohol first. What's the huge difference between that and an a-line? Granted there's your occasional patient with a horribly positional line, but I would hope the techs can speak up and admit it would be difficult for them and leave it to the RN or RT to mess with it.

[RN1980]

we had a issue with techs not closing the side ports properly and not flushing the line adequately and they would clot off. we found ourselves constantley going behind them and trouble shooting the line. so we just said we would do our own draws.

[sunnycalifRN]

RN's, LVN's, RRT's. Don't use PCT's.

[meandragonbrett]

RNs and RRT only.

[detroitdano]

we had a issue with techs not closing the side ports properly and not flushing the line adequately and they would clot off. we found ourselves constantley going behind them and trouble shooting the line. so we just said we would do our own draws.

Sounds like poor training, not that the techs aren't capable of it. I've seen RN's do some dumb stuff with lines as well.

[RN1980]

dealing with art lines is a nursing responsibility in our unit, there are plenty other things that techs do that keep their plates full besides having to draw art line samples.

[kimmie518]

Well, what would be the difference between drawing off a central line? All they have to do is wipe and pull back right???

[ittybabyRN, RN]

I work in a NICU and RN's only handle A-lines. As a new grad it even took me a couple times to feel comfortable with them, I don't think I would want someone else drawing off my lines...