1 June 2021
By ANMJ staff
A new clinical best practice standard that changes the approach to peripheral intravenous catheters (PIVC) has been released by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.
The national standard, The Management of Peripheral Intravenous Catheters Clinical Care, provides guidance on best practice care and skilful use of PIVCs which includes prompting health workers to consider whether a cannula is really necessary before insertion.
In addition, the standard outlines how to insert, maintain and remove PIVCs safely and effectively describes the care that patients should expect to receive if they have a PIVC inserted during a hospital stay.
According to the Commission the standard was necessary given that 7.7 million Australians have a PIVC inserted each year, yet up to 40% of all first-time attempts to insert a PIVC in adults failed. Consequently, many patients faced the prospect of undergoing multiple painful attempts before a PIVC is successfully inserted.
Commission Clinical Director, Associate Professor Amanda Walker said the new standard for PIVC would help to improve the techniques used by health care professionals and, in turn, reduce the risk for patients who may experience issues with insertion or complications afterwards.
“It aims to ensure the best chance of cannulas being inserted correctly the first time, and once they are in, for them to be well maintained, to avoid blockages, infections and other problems such as leakage into the tissue or inflammation,’’ Professor Walker said.
“An intravenous cannula insertion is an experience that almost everyone who goes to hospital will have. Yet there is a high failure rate of 40% for first-time insertions, and also a high rate of problems, with up to 69% of cannulas needing to be removed due to complications. So, let’s embrace this opportunity with the new standard to consider how we can all do it better.”
The new standard is now available
online.