Delivering multiple medications via backpriming.

www.nursingcenter.com SUPPOSE YOU’RE caring for a patient who’s receiving 5% dextrose in 0.9% sodium chloride solution at 100 ml per hour, along with 600 mg of clindamycin every 8 hours and 80 mg of tobramycin every 8 hours. Piggybacking the antibiotics into the primary administration set is a common practice, but using a secondary set for each medication requires frequent connection and disconnection from the primary infusion set. In this article, I’ll explain the backpriming method of infusing both drugs with the same secondary administration set. This technique can save you valuable nursing time, reduce the patient’s risk of infection (because the line is manipulated less often), and reduce the cost of infusion therapy for your hospital.