The ‘National Standard for User-applied Labelling of Injectable Medicines, Fluids and Lines’ aims to reduce patient risk from injectable medications and highly recommends all intravenous (IV) IV lines are labelled when administering IV medications and IV fluids.
Western Health’s ABC Audit in November 2022 indicated inadequate (38%) IV line labelling compliance. The Medication Safety committee endorsed a nursing and midwifery quality improvement project in June 2023 to implement strategies to educate nurses and midwives to the requirement to all a label to all lines (irrespective of the time the therapies are being administered) and sustain the labelling practice.
During the June 2023 ABC Audit an overall increase of 19% compliance has occurred in the intervening 6-month period across clinical areas to a total of 57%. Continuous improvement is a focus to obtain 100% of IV lines labelling.
Ongoing Improvement Plan:
All intravenous lines are to be labelled with IntraVENOUS stickers
A revised Intravenous Therapy (IVT) Management procedure has been published on Prompt platform to support the increase in awareness and compliance.
A poster has been developed to guide IV line labelling in clinical wards and departments.
For more information, email leanne.nuske@wh.org.au. or discuss with your local nurse/midwife educator or pharmacist.