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Device eliminates need for X-rays

Dave Martinez/Daily News-Sun

PICC

Carrie Waffle, a clinical nurse specialist with BARD Access Systems, demonstrates how to use an ultrasound to find a vein for a peripherally inserted central catheter, or PICC, at Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center. In combination with location-finding magnets and a pulse reader, Del E Webb is the first hospital in Arizona and one of a handful around the country to use a new method for inserting PICC lines.

Dave Martinez/Daily News-Sun

PICC

Mary Law, of Surprise, is one of a few patients to receive a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line using a new method only available to a few hospitals in the country. A PICC line is a way to deliver medicine or nutrition through the veins with a tube that ends just before reaching the heart. Up until this year, Law would have to sit under an X-ray while the tube's tip was adjusted to the right place. Now, nurses at Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center can use a location-sensing magnet and a pulse reader to get the tube to it's proper place without an X-ray.

Dave Martinez/Daily News-Sun

PICC

Patients that need peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) lines will no longer need to be under the X-ray. Using a pulse reader and a location-sensing magnet, nurses can string a tube through the veins and place it at the opening to the heart without using an X-ray to find and adjust the line. Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011. (Dave Martinez/Daily News-Sun)