i'm looking for some moral support for USIVs. i am bad at them, having done fewer than 20, and my success rate is about 50%.
they are really beating up my procedural confidence. unlike some other procedures, i don't have a sense of stepwise improvement- it's very binary: either i get the line or i don't.
the patients that tend to require USIVs are also not the easiest to work with. today i failed at two, one on an IVDU pt with no veins who was screaming profanities at me while i tried, and the other on a pt with CP who was so contracted that my only option was to basically attempt it upside down.
i understand the procedure from an intellectual standpoint. i'm open to your tips and tricks, but that isn't really the issue here. now when i get asked to do a line, i have zero confidence and i approach it expecting failure. i know that i just have to keep showing up, keep trying, and eventually the skill will come, but it is just wearing on me to keep trying and failing at this one procedure (especially considering all my peers seem completely facile).
I was probably 50% for the first 50-75 of them that I did, then I am almost 100% after that. Really, once you do enough and learn enough tricks, you will almost never fail. Until then, just remember and stick to the basics
- move either the needle, or the probe, never both at once
- Use long angiocaths, the longer the better, for any vein that is not right at the surface
- tiny movements are necessary
- identify and avoid the nerves, you will never get to a vein that you have to go through a nerve first to reach, unless the patient is comatose (obviously it still isn't ok).
- movements of the needle need to actually move it into the skin, I have had patients with skin so tough and scarred that I felt like I was moving forward when the needle was just moving/tenting the skin and not sliding through it.
- When first puncturing the skin, push through the skin in a smooth motion NOT watching on the monitor. If you try to watch everything from the moment the needle first touches the skin on the monitor, you will be sitting there pushing a sharp needle through tenting, tough skin bit by bit, which patients do NOT appreciate. Slide the needle a nice ways into the skin, at least a few milimeters, visually ensuring you actually went through the dermis, THEN find the tip with the probe and do everything else focused on the monitor
- Don't get impatient and try to advance the angiocath too soon; if it isn't far enough into the vein, it can kink as you try to advance it, and it is all over then, have to start again. If you have to keep advancing the needle until it is hubbed against the skin, with the tip visualized inside the lumen, that is perfectly fine
- Don't get frustrated and pull the needle out if you can't clearly see the tip. You can use jiggling motions, small adjustments, and look at surrounding tissue deformation from your movements to guide the tip to the vein. Once you are tenting the vein with the needle tip, you will eventually get it into the lumen, and it is very clear where your tip is after that
- If you have trouble finding the needle, try adjusting the angle of the probe in relation to the needle. The strongest signal will be when the probe's beam is perpendicular to the shaft of the needle (or bevel at the very tip). It is very easy to inadvertently have the probe held at a sub-optimal angle, especially if you are staring at the screen trying to find where you are.
- Anchor both hands on the part of the patient you are accessing, not on the bed, the rail, the table, or the patient's torso.
- Don't be afraid to tie/tape down the patient's arm if they are so out of it that you can't get them to cooperate.
- Don't put yourself in danger, if the patient is so agitated/combative that you feel you are at a high risk to get a needle stick, don't do the procedure. Insist that someone (or multiple someones) help hold, or sedate the patient first if you need to do so to get IV access. If the patient has capacity to the point you cannot sedate them against their will, don't do the procedure if they won't cooperate with it.
Don't let this kill your confidence. Some patients are very challenging, and you just need to get enough of them in to start feeling confident. Try to do as many as you can early on, and other US-guided procedures will come much more easily.