Ultrasound-guided peripheral IV placement practices: A national survey of gel and probe cover use.
About a quarter of emergency departments sites switched to sterile gel after CDC's contaminated-gel warning.
Ultrasound-guided peripheral IV placement practices: A national survey of gel and probe cover use.
Point-of-care ultrasound is often used to obtain peripheral intravenous (peripheral intravenous) access in the emergency department, but the coupling gel can be a source of healthcare-associated infections.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the change in ultrasound gel and policies that occurred after the CDC recommendation, along with an evaluation of ultrasound gel and cover use for ultrasound-guided peripheral intravenous (US-peripheral intravenous) access.
This study was a cross-sectional, national survey of US-PIV use in emergency departments (emergency departments) taking place between August 14, 2025, and September 31, 2025.
nearly a quarter of EDs switched to sterile gel after the warning
A total of 175 unique responses were received, with 143 included after assessment for duplicate institutional responses.
An emergency departments policy for US-PIV was reported at 107 institutions (74.8%), whereas 29 (20.2%) reported no policy, and 7 (4.9%) respondents did not know whether such a policy existed.
No changes were made at 98 (68.5%) of the responding institutions, however, 72 (73.5%) of these institutions already used sterile gel for US-PIV.
This is compared to 9 (6.3%) institutions using gel from a multiuse bottle.
Our survey found that approximately 25% of responding institutions made changes to their US-PIV policy or gel selection in response to the CDC recommendation to use sterile gel for percutaneous procedures.
Close to half of all institutions were already compliant with the sterile gel recommendations and did not need to modify their practices.
However, many institutions still do not use covers or sterile gel for US-PIVs, suggesting a need for better compliance with current recommendations.