We’ve recently returned from the very successful annual meeting of the Association for Vascular Access (www.avainfo.org). Though many hospitals have reduced the size of their IV teams or eliminated them altogether, it was obvious from last week’s gathering at the gigantic Gaylord conference center in National Harbor, Md. that there is still a substantial cohort of vascular access experts out there, working hard and deeply committed to better patient care.
One of the highlights of the conference for us was doing a focus group with Excelsior Medical, makers of the SwabCap disinfection cap for needleless IV connectors. Excelsior took the time and effort to meet with a small group of nurses to get some qualitative, very informative feedback about the vascular access challenges that nurses face.
Earlier in the month, Excelsior also teamed with AVA to cosponsor a webinar on best methods to disinfect needless connectors. The webinar is archived at http://tinyurl.com/35c6jnt.
The focus group and other feedback indicate that hospitals and vascular access nurses remain open to new and better means to achieve two goals:
1.) Complying with Joint Commission and similar protocols for cleaning needleless connectors/disinfection caps.
2.) Reducing catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSI, also known as a central line associated bloodstream infections or CLABSI).
Watch this space for more about the AVA conference and other new technological developments featured at the conference.