I was wondering who are inserting IV canula to babies in your NICU and also taking blood sampling like CBC and rotuine stuff.

1) Doctors

2) Nurses

In Our unit Nurses insert IV lines and draw routine investigations. only blood Cultures are taken by Doctors. Of course nurses take it from heel prick or venous samples.

I have seen this practice in some NICU that Doctors insert IV lines and take blood samples. Is it evidence based that doctors in NICU also act like Phelebotomists??. Imagine a 30-40 bed NICU and doctor at night call have to take ABG, CBC etc , and how he or she will focus on patient management?

Any comments on this issue will be appreciated

In our (and likely, all Swedish NICUs) nurses insert iv cannulas and take routine blood tests (direct venous cannulation and from umb art catheters).

UVC, UAC, and periph arterial cannulas are inserted by dr's, PICC insertion vary but in the units I work there are specially trained nurses for PICC insertion.

Personal reflection: this work would dominate over more patient management and I feel it is a good sharing of work, i.e. I am in favour of nurses doing this.

in our nicu nurses are inserting iv canulas and taking blood samples central lines are made by doctors ,my openion is sharing work .

In our small unit of one neonatologist working , nurses do the work. We will help them if they can't get the sample.

Thanks for the comments. I am also in favour of nurses doing it. Any body to comment on this issue from UK and also how you handle such tasks of IV canulations + blood Sampling.

Hi from UK, our unit (Level 3), a number of our nurses cannulate and in doing so can take for cultures etc, there is also optional training for nurses who wish to draw arterial samples. As a nurse myself this can sometimes become a double edged sword as your commitments can be stretched across a bust unit at times. We also have a tier of Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioners trained for all access and airway procedures.

Best wishes

Alistair

In our unit (Tx,USA) the nursing staff insert all peripheral IV"s, draw all labs from lines or by venous or arterial puncture. Nurses with special training insert all peripheral long lines (PICC's) and umbilical lines. The specialized nurses are transport nurses too to pick up infants to bring to our hospital via ambulance/helicopter. The physicians only put in lines if the nurse is unable to get the line in. Actually the nurses have more experience with this than most of the doctors. We also have advanced practice nurses that can perform all of these functions.

Our nurses place IV's, and perform venous and capillary sticks. The neonatal NPs here draw blood cultures under sterile technique, and perform art sticks as well as most PICC/UAC/UVC insertions.