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mlrae@luriechil...
Flushing Caps

Hello. In our central line policy the only units that we say need to flush the new cap prior to placement include the NICU and CCU (since they often have babies too). We use the Microclave clear which is only 0.04 mL) for priming volume. For over 20 years we have never flushed the cap in pediatric Hem/Onc/SCT and have never had any issues. We just had a central line meeting and were going over barriers related to our policies and some of the units flush the cap with saline and some do not (inconsistent) and one of the NICU RNs was quite shocked that we don't do this for some of the patients. Any documentation on what is right or wrong? Recommendations?

pschult0
Manufacturer recommends priming MicroClave

I'm an IV Educator with a large home care company (as of October 2017).  We use the MicroClave clear and policy here (when I came into the job) was that the cap didn't need to be primed prior to use - with rationale of internal cap volume being very small.  INS standards recommend purging air from needless connectors (Air Embolism standard 50.2). MicroClave manufacturer's instructions refer to the internal volume of the cap (.o4 ml) as the "priming volume" and recommend priming prior to use.  I reached out to our sales rep who confirmed that the cap should be primed before attaching to the device and sent me the offical ICU Medical document stating this. Our policy was changed to require cap priming prior to use. 

 
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