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ANESTHESIA ALERT
Denise Gallagher, RN, BSN
The Body Mechanics of Great IV Starts
With a 97% first-try success rate, we've ditched the Band-Aids.
W
hen you
EASIER ACCESS Hanging the patient's hand off the
need to get
end of a blanket or pillow gets the knuckles out of the
way and improves the angle.
an IV started, your first attempt
is your best chance at
success. Once you
miss a vein, the situation tends to go downhill, and each additional attempt becomes
that much more challenging. That's why
the ABC's are so
important: Always be
comfortable and
always be confident.
In the last ambulatory care department
where I worked, the
anesthesiologists were complaining about all the Band-Aids on the arms
of patients whose IV starts were missed. So I conducted a random study
of 262 patients over a 3-month period and found the IV success rate was
only 75%. But after I conducted an in-service on the ABC's and the body
mechanics of IV insertions, the improvement was dramatic. A year later,
our success rate was up to 97%.
It starts with comfort and confidence, and those apply to both you
and the patient, by the way. When you're comfortable and confident,
your patient is much more likely to feel the same way. How can you
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | N O V E M B E R 2013
