Saline Lockes vs. I.V. Bags

[PMedic850]

Personally, on every call where I start an IV, I use the Saline well / Lock and draw the labs through it. Then Hang a bag of NS @ KVO. I never use a micro drip set, always a Macro (unless it's for a piggy back med drip).

I guess I just figured if my patient decides to crap out on me, I'll won't have to bother breaking out a bag & drip set.

The hospitals we frequent all love the saline lock because they can disconnect it, gown-up the patient & then hook it back up without a bother. I went to one hospital in VT (that I rarely ever go to) & they wouldn't accept prehospital bloods, whatever...it's just more work for them.

[buddha]

More like more revenue than more bother. Hospitals cannot charge for the procedure (or the supplies) if they don't perform it.

One of my hospitals used to be notorious for pulling all the field IV's and restarting their own. Their contention was that prehospital IV's weren't adequate, and that they were an infection waiting to happen. If the staff knew that an IV was a field start, they would arbitrarily yank it and start a new one. When I did my IV therapy rotation, the IV team made it quite clear that they didn't think IV's should be started in the field at all - they said our IV's were unsterile and that medics wreck all the good veins and make their jobs more difficult.

Personally, I believed these opinions were more revenue driven than anything else.

[battlemedic345]

Anyone mention starting a lock then attaching a line to it? That way you can KVO and still have the ability to take the line off if they get combative.....

[buddha]

Yeah battlemedic, I believe I did - somewhere back in the archives of this thread. A lock gives one the flexibility to start a line (or not) and the portability to go almost anywhere without dragging your bag.

[mediccjh]

More like more revenue than more bother. Hospitals cannot charge for the procedure (or the supplies) if they don't perform it.

One of my hospitals used to be notorious for pulling all the field IV's and restarting their own. Their contention was that prehospital IV's weren't adequate, and that they were an infection waiting to happen. If the staff knew that an IV was a field start, they would arbitrarily yank it and start a new one. When I did my IV therapy rotation, the IV team made it quite clear that they didn't think IV's should be started in the field at all - they said our IV's were unsterile and that medics wreck all the good veins and make their jobs more difficult.

Personally, I believed these opinions were more revenue driven than anything else.

Sounds like Staten Island University Hospital. I don't even bother starting IVs on my patients if I'm taking them there, unless they really need it.