Don’t let the saline flush and vial shortage put your practice in peril. Read further for strategies to manage the shortage.
The Bibliography is Here!
Your first and final stop for all things related to IV push medications. If you are ready to make a practice change and need a comprehensive literature search about preparation and administration of IV push medications - your search starts and ends here. Please see Bibliography — National Coalition for IV Push Safety (ncivps.org)
Reconstitute/Dilute/Combine meds into a syringe
Safe Practices for Small Volume Medications
Many nurses believe that they cannot control the rate of administration of small volume medications. You do not need to slowly inject the drug because the small volume is still in the IV tubing – that is why the rate of the flush is critical to control the rate of administration. The second flush being administered at the same rate of the medication will properly control the rate of administration. Read more here.
Emergency! My Patient Has a Potassium of 6.8 mEq/L and I Need to Push Insulin IV: How Should I Do That?
Demystifying Dilution (of IV Push Medications)
Unnecessary Dilution of Opioids for IV Push Administration
Push-Dose-Pressors
In My Humble Opinion……
In the absence of consistent, evidence-based policies, procedures, and information to guide nursing practice, we as a profession, seem to be filling in the gaps with opinions. Of course, the reality with opinions is that everyone has one, and everyone else’s is wrong. Let’s stick with facts about IV push medications.
Variation leads to unsafe practices
Nursing education is the foundation of nursing practice and we challenge all those involved in nursing education to commit to teaching our future nurses safe practice guidelines for the administration of IVP medications and to eliminate out dated drug reference guides in their teaching environments.