Evidence-Based Practice for Obtaining Blood Specimens From a Central Venous Access Device

As part of a scheduled policy and procedure review, the department of nursing education at a large urban academic medical center conducted a literature review to determine the most up-to-date evidence for central venous access device (CVAD) blood draws. The literature review revealed that the dead space blood draw was the best practice methodology because the dead space methodology, defined as the point at which blood is in the attached syringe when aspirating without flushing, reduced the potential for infection with minimal blood loss from blood discard.