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O U T P AT 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 | D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4
little more flexible,"
says one nurse man-
ager.
Popular pain-spar-
ing options include a
small wheal of lido-
caine 1% at the IV
insertion site (43%)
and numbing the
needlestick site with
a diluted lidocaine
solution (17%),
according to our sur-
vey. "I really like
using lidocaine 1%
plain injected just off
to the side of where
I'm going to insert
the angiocatheter,"
says Rae Ann Moe,
BSN, VA-BC, a staff
nurse at Madison (S.D.) Hospital. Harold Oster, RN, of West Boca
Medical Center in Boca Raton, Fla., says starting IVs using an
intradermal injection of lidocaine 1% "should become a standard
of care." Not all agree. "Some patients complain about the numb-
ing injection more than the IV start when we didn't give anything,"
says Charlotte Overcash, BSN, PACU manager at the Obici
Ambulatory Surgery Center in Suffolk, Va.
V E N I P U N C T U R E
HANDS DOWN
About one-
fourth of our
survey respon-
dents prefer to
start IVs in the
arm — 57%
prefer the hand.
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN
