Midline catheters: the middle ground of intravenous therapy administration.

Evangelical Community Hospital at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, is a small community hospital with 110 beds. This organization sought a device to bridge between the short peripheral catheter and the peripherally inserted central catheter. The midline catheter provided an answer to this dilemma. However, a literature search for midline catheters yielded only four published articles, and only one of these was related to outcomes. The drugs used and the type of patients treated at Evangelical Community Hospital provided a challenge for the infusion therapist. This article examines the management of the patients who fell into a midlength of stay, and for whom both the short peripheral catheter and the peripherally inserted central catheter were inappropriate.