Personal Protective Equipment

Nancy Delisio, RN, had a frightening phone call from a nurse who was trying to insert a PICC line. The line wasnt threading correctly, so she was calling us, says Delisio, a nurse educator with the Infusion Nurses Society (INS). What was she doing inserting the line, and where was her supervisor or another (trained clinician) to help her? That question illustrates a common theme among many calls INS receives. Bedside nurses dont know the basics something that needs to be taught from the top down. It leads me to believe that maybe staff nurses have heard about a procedure or protocol, but theyve never received appropriate training.  Its the small things that lead to problems, Delisio  says.

Activities to stop the spread of the intestinal superbug Clostridium difficile are on the rise, but they are not yielding large improvements, according to a nationwide survey of infection preventionists released today by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).