Advanced Nursing Skills with Central Line Training Kits

The central line is a flexible intravenous tube inserted into the patient’s large vein close to the heart's location in the center of the body. Doctors and nurses use central lines to draw blood or administer medication, nutrients, or other forms of treatment.

Every nursing student must learn how to use central lines because they will be working with them almost every day. Medical schools need to provide the best tools possible to help students acquire advanced nursing skills with central lines before they graduate. These tools and resources come in central line training kits.  

What are Central Line Training Kits? 

Central line kits come with an assortment of medical items suitable for helping students learn the process of inserting and securing a central venous catheter tube into a patient’s large central vein. These items include:

• Central venous catheter
• Synthetic manikin or skin pad
• Catheter clamp
• Vessel dilator
• Sutures
• Syringe and needle
• Guidewire
• Injection caps
• 1% lidocaine (anesthetic)
• Placebo blood or medicine

Of course, there are different kinds of central line kits on the market. Some central line kits may contain only some of these items, depending on the requirements of the lesson plan. The idea is to find a central line kit that makes it easy for students to practice working with central venous catheters. You don’t have to practice on a human person if you have access to a simulated manikin, arm, or torso. 

The Benefits of Central Line Kits 

Central line care is frequently associated with complex nursing procedures and treatment. Nursing students with limited experience can easily make mistakes during the first months and years when they learn to insert central venous catheters. One small mistake made could have devasting health complications for a patient, such as infection, catheter misplacement, arterial puncture, air emboli, or death. 

Central line kits are the safest and most effective way to help nursing students develop advanced skills without risking injury or harm to human patients. Below are the top four benefits of central line kits and how they make it easier for students to learn:

1) Learn Procedural Techniques to Reduce Mistakes

One of the most significant benefits of central line training kits is helping nursing students learn the advanced procedural techniques associated with inserting and securing central venous catheters. Students can learn about these techniques from textbooks, but it is never the same as learning about them through experience. Only central line training kits can allow students to develop this kind of hands-on experience with central venous catheters. 

The procedural techniques that nursing students can learn with the help of central line training kits include:

• Administering an anesthetic or sedative to ease the patient’s stress and anxiety
• Utilizing ultrasound technology to identify the central vein
• Inserting the needle into the skin and central vein
• Threading the catheter over the guidewire
• Inserting the dilator to open up the puncture site for the catheter
• Inserting the catheter into the central vein
• Securing the catheter with sutures

Remember that central line training kits only assist nursing students in performing these procedures. You may still need to provide them with other resources, such as ultrasound machines and simulated human patients, to teach them these procedural techniques. 

2) Simulation Training to Avoid Complications

Simulation training programs can use central line kits to avoid the risk of complications to patients. These programs may use manikins or simulated patients to teach nursing students how to perform central venous catheter procedural techniques. 

Manikins simulate real body parts and veins to allow students to practice inserting catheters properly. Since manikins are artificial, there is no chance of anyone getting hurt if students make mistakes. Students have the luxury of making as many mistakes as they want with manikins until they understand how to perform the procedural techniques flawlessly. 

Once nursing students perfect their skills with manikins, they can graduate to practicing on simulated patients. These are professionally trained patients who understand how to react when nurses perform various procedures on them, such as administering anesthetic and inserting the catheter. Their reactions and feedback to the procedures can inform students on the right and wrong things they did. 

3) More Time to Practice and Gain Confidence

Nursing students can use central line training kits inside and outside of the classroom. They can practice on manikins with the kits on their own time to develop their skills even more. The more time they spend practicing and acting out the procedural techniques, the more confidence they will gain when it comes time to do it for real. 

Building confidence is a critical aspect of training nursing students to manage central venous catheters. If students have the experience and knowledge to perform the procedural techniques involved, they will be confident in treating human patients and achieving better outcomes for them. 

4) Learn About Various Treatments

Nursing students need to learn about the medications delivered to patients with central venous catheters. Since providing the wrong medication can have devastating health consequences for a patient, students must know which medications are the best to administer under the right circumstances. 

Students will use their central line training kits to practice treating patients who need blood transfusions, chemotherapy, antibiotics, liquid food, or IV fluids. Simulated patients do a great job assisting nursing students in learning about these treatments. If a student tries applying the wrong treatment through the catheter, the simulated patient will provide the appropriate reaction or inform the student about the mistake. 

In most cases, nursing students will only be administering simulated medications during training. These are medications with realistic labeling on their containers and ampoules but with only sterilized water inside them. 

Conclusion

Central line kits are used to teach complex nursing procedures to students who don’t have much real-life experience performing them yet. If you obtain high-quality central line kits for your students, they will have the best tools and resources to develop the advanced nursing skills they will need in a real clinical setting.