My current hospital procedure when placing a PICC line is to stand at the bedside until x-ray confirmation is obtained.  With recent addition of ultrasound the PICC line requests are growing.  It is becoming impossible for me to wait for radiology.  But I am not yet comfortable with dressing the line, in case the line needs to be adjusted.  Does anyone wrap their PICCS in sterile gauze and come back later to pull the wire and dress when x-ray has confirmed  SVC placement. Amy Graham Nutritional Support Memorial Hospital
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
We don't have time to wait for xray either. We do the dressing application for single lumens, but on dual lumens, we wait. We seem to have more malpositions with dual lumens that with singles. However, there are times when really busy that we don't wait for xray for duals either.
We will be starting to use tip location technology soon. We are very excited about this and will leave all of them knowing that the tip is in the right direction. We expect to see more productive time spent responding to the requests for PICCs, instead of waiting on xrays.
We have never wrapped the catheter like described and go back to reposition.
Gwen Irwin
Austin, Texas