Poor injection technique may have infected 40,000 with virus

It has been reported today that thousands of patients may have been exposed to the HIV and Hep B virus during poor Read more

Warning bracelets for allergies

As usual we are searching the net for IV news. Today we came across this little item about patient safety and the use of bracelets. They use red bracelets for allergies, yellow if you are at risk of falls and wait for it… Read more

Electronic infection surveillance

Cardinal Health in the US use information technology to help reduce healthcare-acquired infections. Read more

Syringe vending machines are launched

In an attempt to stop needle sharing  Taiwanese intravenous drug users will be able to use vending machines that dispenses two syringes, diluent and an alcohol swab. Click here to view the full story.

Peripheral cannula phlebitis article

A recent article in the Journal of Infusion Nursing has examined the issue of peripheral cannula phlebitits. The authors found that average dwell time was 1.9 days and an overall phlebitis rate of 3.7% was described. No suprises with these results. However, the authors go on to describe “asymptomatic peripheral IVs may not need to be Read more

UK nurse died following needlestick

A sad and thankfully rare incident. This nurse received a needlestick injury and developed HIV after testing the blood sugar levels of a HIV positive patient “The hospital room Read more

PICC placement resource

Our commercial colleagues often try and provide educational resources that support our practice. Some work, for example The PIVA Toolkit from 3M. Some do not work! One other that definitely works Read more

Measuring CVP via PICC

Well can you? I always hesitate to answer this one. However, the people at ICU room pearls have published my usual answer… the measurement will be slightly higher than true (1mm Hg)and it is the trend that is important… more details click here. 

Midline, PICC definitions etc

Just stumbled across a great page on thebody site that has really gone out of its way to define peripheral cannulae,  Read more

PICC blogs

I am sat here trying to include a section on patient information in a presentation. Then it came to me. I have put in hundreds upon hundreds of PICC’s but what do I really know about patient experience. As a fan of blogging I gave Google a try! I typed in PICC line blog  Read more

Martin Kiernan on blood cultures

Another gem of common sense from Martin Kiernan. Martin describes the recent news story that has recently broke with regard to taking less blood cultures.  Read more

Subcutaneous injection technique

This useful article pulls together and attempts to answer all those little questions we often debate about subcut injections. For example, a change from a 45 degree insertion angle to a 90 degree  Read more