Wipe the iv port even with antibiotics?

Nurses Medications

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So thursday I was assisting a RN that was kinda drowning. She was gathering all the patients medications and what not and prepping. There was an antibiotic due and she grabbed the tubing that was capped by the previous nurse and just hooked the antibiotic up and then just connected it to the patient. Myself I always wipe the patients IV port even if I just cleaned it again. I asked her after we left why she didn't wipe the IV port and she said 'WELL I'M HANGING AN ANTIBIOTIC ANYWAY SO WHATS THE WORSE THAT CAN HAPPEN, I NEVER WIPE WITH ANTIBIOTICS.." That made me think about that. Not that I take anyone's advice with practice.:down:

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Specializes in Emergency.

That is a dangerous practice and demonstrates a poor understanding of germ theory and antibiotics. Always scrub your hub!

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Specializes in Trauma Surgical ICU.

Bad practice period.. Always scrub the hub if you are connecting something to it..

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

VERY bad practice - reportable in my opinion.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

Bad, bad practice!

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Do you have an infection control nurse? Perhaps your team needs an inservice or someone to explain why this is so important.

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Specializes in ED; Med Surg.

That's why I like the green caps. Don't have to scrub for 15 seconds either...

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Dumb. Nice job saying something.

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Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

That's solid rationale.

In fact, we waste so much money on aseptic surgery! Just start doing routine open procedures in the ward rooms, or better yet at home! Why wash your hands or sterilize equipment. Just hang some postoperative abx. Problem solved. Please send me a percentage of all the money saved.

Sarcastic face.

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Definitely reportable. Seriously. This is a terrible breach of practice. At the very least, just suppose that the antibiotic being hung doesn't cover whatever crapola is hanging around on that hub?

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Wrong in two ways...you should always assess the IV before giving antibiotics...I have encountered many IVs that were not patent even though documented as WNL from the previous shift or even just prior to starting my shift...when they are not. So she did not even flush the IV? As someone else pointed out the green caps we use at our hospital have proven to be much more effective than the alcohol wipe and scrubbing the hub which nobody seems to do for 15 seconds...that is a long time actually. The green caps for those that dont use them are permeated in alcohol and effective after 3 minutes of applying them and have shown to decrease the incidence of central line infections so they decided to start using them on peripheral lines as well. They are even using a version of them on dialysis lines now as well.

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Specializes in Pulmonary, Lung Transplant, Med/Surg.

In addition to her lack of scrubbing being inappropriate how does she know what bugs that antibiotic even covers??? You could use that as an argument, not every antibiotic covers every bug!

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