As I am reviewing the past topics, I have come across regarding the topic of drawing labs via a midline. I have seen topics dating from 2013 with no yet that it s beneficial or appropriate to draw labs from midlines. Is there any new (recent) evidence out there regarding labs and midlines? My health care system is still split on this topic. My facility still does not want labs drawn from midlines but our sister hospital says yes and that they have been doing for years. They are going by the maufacturers recommendation but no other EBP.
Please any updates? We want to do whats best for out patients and if drawing labs from a midline will make the patients satisfied with less sticks then should we practice this?
M.lawson
I updated my midline catheter online class about 10 months ago. this course focuses on an examination of all the published evidence on midlines. I did not find any studies providing outcomes of drawing blood samples from a midline at that time. There may be additional studies by now.
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, NPD-BC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
Website http://www.hadawayassociates.com
Office Phone 770-358-7861
Thank you. The facility that has been allowing labs drawn from a midline has done there own research in the past and that is what they are basing it on (not written up or published) Now as a system we are all trying to be coehesive across the system and do the same processes. As the Iv clinician at my hospital, my partner and I do not want to allow labs from midlines so this makes it a situation we don’t know what to do. Can they pressure us to comply to do the same with only their studies that are not even published? Any suggestions how to handle this? The idea is to have a system wide policy so we all do the same in all hospitals is our system. Unfortunately the hospital that draws labs from midlines seems to be the bigger voice in the system, they are larger and has been in the system longer.
Michele A. Lawson MSN,RN- BC, CRNI
Internal data is evidence for your facility. What is the bottom line reason you are holding out on using midlines for blood sampling? Lack of published outcomes? Many practices do not have that. Lack of blood return from your midlines? Find out why the sister hospital is successful by close assessment of what they are doing differently that produces blood return. While no one has published outcomes with using a midlines for drawing a blood sample, that should not be used to prohibit the practice. Set up another internal QA/QI data collection process and collect your own data. This is acceptable as evidence for your hospital system regardless of whether you publish it or not.
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, NPD-BC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
Website http://www.hadawayassociates.com
Office Phone 770-358-7861
Thank you for your response, We will definelty work with our sister hopsital on coming together with all the hard work and research they have done! The main reason was not to manipulate a midline for labs and possibly cause some kind of problem with the midline. Also the sister hopitals IV team is the one who draws the labs (they have a large team) , Our bedside nurse would draw the labs as there is only 2 IV clinicians in our hospital and we mainly do the PICC/midline insertions.
Michele A. Lawson MSN,RN- BC, CRNI
IMHO, the goal is to align both teams so they have the same scope of services and staffing. Board scope of practice to include all VAD insertion and management is the goal I would choose.
Lynn Hadaway, M.Ed., RN, NPD-BC, CRNI
Lynn Hadaway Associates, Inc.
PO Box 10
Milner, GA 30257
Website http://www.hadawayassociates.com
Office Phone 770-358-7861