One of the nurses in our dept. was just taken to task by a "forensic nurse" who was with a patient who was having her PICC discontinued. The forensic nurse said "You should be wearing a mask when you do that...there have been studies done showing that infections increase when you don't wear a mask to dc central lines". We have never worn masks when discontinuing lines and I have never read of doing it. Am I missing something? It seems to me that once the line is out, the only chance of infection is through the exit site...and there would be the same chance with a peripheral I.V. exit site...and I know of no one wearing masks to remove peripheral catheters.
I teach my nurses to wear a mask with discontinuing a line due to risk of infection. I do not have the reference at my fingertips, but believe I read this while doing all the research for starting our PICC team over four years ago. Our central line dressing kits contain a mask and they are to wear them, clean the site as for a dressing change, and then discontinue the central line (PICC and TLC).
Carole
In the many years I have been practicing in IV therapy I've never seen a PICC D/C'd with a mask being worn. Using the same logic you would have to wear a mask to D/C a PIV. Both the PICC and PIV are placed peripherally and as such their sites are exposed to far less bacteria from the skin than a central line site.
Dianne Sim RN
CEO & President,
IV Assist, Inc
Dianne Sim RN, VA-BC, CEO; IV Assist, Inc.
We do not wear a mask for DCing PICCs. If the PICC is "stuck" we would simply get out one of the central line redress kits we carry with us, that have a mask in them, and proceed from there.
LM
Thank you all for your comments. I'm not finding any literature that recommends that masks be worn when dc'ing uncomplicated central lines. We have so few "stuck" PICCs and we would then mask etc to do a redress.
Tanya
T. Nauman RN, CRNI