Iv saline flush

RE: Iv saline flush

lavetnurse — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:43:54 GMT

Its very busy, theres also an equine hospital on site too and both are referral only. No first opinion or routine stuff here. We date and time the bag once breached and then discard it when 24hrs is up.

RE: Iv saline flush

colette fitzpatrick — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 20:57:50 GMT

Not supposed to use WFI ...... one of the vets here sent me this..........

Sterile Water should NEVER be used as a flush solution. It has an osmolarity of 0. Therefore, every blood cell that it comes in contact with will swell and burst!

RE: Iv saline flush

Sal the 1st — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 19:23:37 GMT

can you get water for injection - that might save you a bit of waste?

RE: Iv saline flush

colette fitzpatrick — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 16:48:48 GMT

Not as far as I know as I actually work in Bermuda and some things we just can't get over here !

RE: Iv saline flush

molladog — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 15:45:39 GMT

[quote user="colette fitzpatrick"]We use about 20 a day I guess, you sound a lot busier than us!!! Can I ask, when would you throw the bag after it has been broached? As if I am only using say 60 mls a day and throwing the bag away after 24hours I am going to be throwing a lot of saline bags away! (we only have the 500ml ba[/quote]

Can you not use the 100ml ones ?

RE: Iv saline flush

colette fitzpatrick — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 15:31:24 GMT

We use about 20 a day I guess, you sound a lot busier than us!!! Can I ask, when would you throw the bag after it has been broached? As if I am only using say 60 mls a day and throwing the bag away after 24hours I am going to be throwing a lot of saline bags away! (we only have the 500ml bags )

RE: Iv saline flush

lavetnurse — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 16:50:17 GMT

We make up pre filled saline syringes. The bag has a needle free valve on it and the bag itself is labelled with the date and time it was breached. The syringes are capped with a needle and are also labelled with the description of what it is and the date/ time it was drawn up and all discarded after 24 hrs. Our vets/ interns/ residents are too busy to keep having to draw up saline. 40 syringes are usually made up at once and can easily be gone within an hour. We have 6 wards that can have 20 inpatients in them ( plus icu-hdu/ exotics/ neutropaenic/ isolation, oncology and theatre ) and treatment area so its very busy.

RE: Iv saline flush

melanie lavender — Fri, 07 Jul 2017 15:12:58 GMT

I have never worked any where, where they pre draw them.

I am used to and still do, draw up when needed.

It takes a few seconds to draw up and you dont have syringes floating around.

RE: Iv saline flush

Sal the 1st — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 08:41:07 GMT

[quote user="steph fursland"]

We keep a bag of fluid on the go for flushing iv lines and other things that might need flushing...! It gets thrown on day 2 (so open max about 36hr).

[/quote]

thats pretty much what I am used to.

I suppose with us being a small practice we just don't have that many animals requiring i/v flush at any given time

RE: Iv saline flush

steph fursland — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 23:04:42 GMT

We keep a bag of fluid on the go for flushing iv lines and other things that might need flushing...! It gets thrown on day 2 (so open max about 36hr). I guess drawing into syringes at least means they aren't getting broached multiple times...even so I would probably chuck those after 1-2 days max.

RE: Iv saline flush

Nick Shackleton — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 18:57:28 GMT

In human healthcare we buy pre-filled syringes of saline. These are sterile until open.

RE: Iv saline flush

Courtney Scales — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 17:58:56 GMT

I have worked in quite a few practices which pre-draw their flushes up so they are on hand all the time. But these are usually used with 24 hours.

Once you had pierced through the needle bung of the IV bag, and then recapped the needle, anything I can imagine that was on the bung will travel into the loaded syringe to brew away. I guess you could wear gloves and swab the top of the bung before drawing up every syringe, or put a needleless port on it.

It gives me the critters seeing a flush syringe floating around. I just bin them.

If I was a patient in a human ward and I had seen a tray of flushes for 3 days where I was hospitalized and a nurse came up to me to inject it - I wouldn't be happy.

These are just my brain farts, not science :)

RE: Iv saline flush

Sal the 1st — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 11:28:05 GMT

saline - we usually have flush bag in theatre or prep which is also used for flushing wounds so never hangs around that long, and if it has been used to flush a mucky wound it never gets used again. If no saline and just a single flush it would be WFI because such a small quantity of fluid is needed I wouldn't broach a full bag for say a 2ml or even 1ml and the more times a bag is broached the increased chance of introducing something you don't want in there. I hadn't come across pre drawing i/v fluids for flush before.

RE: Iv saline flush

colette fitzpatrick — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 11:07:00 GMT

Not a daft question at all ! But I am equally curious .. what if the animal is not having fluids ...i.e. Just iv meds.... what do you use to flush in between giving them ? Do you have an open bag in use for this reason ?

RE: Iv saline flush

Sal the 1st — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 07:46:33 GMT

Probably a daft question but I am curious, I have never heard of pre drawing syringes for flushing i/v's? Is this a new thing I have missed? I just generally draw from the bag that the dog or cat has (if there are no adds) and use that which is generally hartmann's.