Top 12 Infusion Nurse Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the highly specialized world of infusion nursing, showing a sharp, well-rounded skill set on your resume can tilt the odds your way and signal that patients are in capable hands. The abilities below will help you stand out, stay safe, and deliver clean, consistent outcomes in a role that moves fast and demands precision.
Infusion Nurse Skills
- IV Insertion
- Phlebotomy
- Chemotherapy Administration
- Patient Assessment
- Pain Management
- Electronic Health Records (EHR)
- Central Line Care
- Medication Administration
- Patient Education
- Aseptic Technique
- Infusion Pumps
- Vascular Access
1. IV Insertion
IV insertion is the placement of a sterile catheter into a vein to deliver medications, fluids, nutrition, or to draw labs. It’s foundational. The front door to infusion therapy.
Why It's Important
Reliable IV access enables timely therapy, stable delivery rates, and rapid intervention when patients need it most.
How to Improve IV Insertion Skills
Know vein anatomy cold: Map common sites, respect vessel direction and depth, and match site choice to therapy duration.
Assess before you poke: Warmth, hydration, tourniquet technique, and patient positioning can turn a tough stick into an easy one.
Right catheter, right size: Use the smallest gauge that meets flow needs to protect veins and reduce complications.
Aseptic setup every time: Skin antisepsis with chlorhexidine, no-touch technique, and securement that prevents micro-movement.
Refine technique: Stabilize the vein, watch for flash, advance gently, and anchor well. Practice on simulation arms and seek supervised reps.
Use visualization tools: Vein finders or ultrasound can rescue difficult access and reduce attempts.
Debrief and get feedback: Track success rates, dwell times, and complications to spot patterns and improve.
Continuous practice wins. So does calm, patient-centered communication.
How to Display IV Insertion Skills on Your Resume
2. Phlebotomy
Phlebotomy involves venipuncture to collect blood for labs or therapeutic needs. In infusion settings, it pairs closely with access preservation and patient comfort.
Why It's Important
Accurate sampling drives accurate decisions. Clean technique reduces hemolysis, repeat sticks, and delays in care.
How to Improve Phlebotomy Skills
Sharpen the basics: Identify optimal sites, angle the needle correctly, and anchor the vein to prevent rolling.
Prevent specimen errors: Use proper order of draw, mix tubes gently, label at bedside, and confirm patient identity without shortcuts.
Comfort matters: Explain the plan, use distraction or breathing cues, and adjust technique for pediatrics, geriatrics, or patients with fragile veins.
Protect the vein: When the patient needs ongoing therapy, choose sites that preserve future access.
Practice under supervision: Simulation, peer review, and skills checkoffs keep technique sharp.
How to Display Phlebotomy Skills on Your Resume
3. Chemotherapy Administration
Preparing and delivering antineoplastic and related agents safely, monitoring closely, and supporting patients through side effects and anxiety. Precision meets vigilance.
Why It's Important
Chemo has narrow safety margins. Proper handling, dosing, sequencing, and monitoring prevent serious harm and improve outcomes.
How to Improve Chemotherapy Administration Skills
Maintain current credentials: Complete and renew recognized chemotherapy/immunotherapy administration training and hazard handling education.
Pre-infusion checks: Verify labs, body surface area, dosing, vascular access suitability, prior reactions, and premedications.
Independent double-checks: Two qualified clinicians verify drug, dose, route, rate, sequence, and patient identity.
Use closed-system transfer devices when required: Reduce exposure risk during prep and administration.
Educate early and often: Expected effects, red flags, home safety, and when to call—deliver in plain language and confirm with teach-back.
Respond fast to reactions: Recognize hypersensitivity quickly, stop infusion, follow emergency protocols, and document thoroughly.
Protect staff and patients: PPE, spill kits, trace waste handling, and clean workspace standards—no shortcuts.
How to Display Chemotherapy Administration Skills on Your Resume
4. Patient Assessment
Systematic evaluation of history, current status, risks, access needs, and therapy goals. A full picture, not a snapshot.
Why It's Important
Right therapy, right route, right timing. Good assessment prevents avoidable complications and guides safe infusion decisions.
How to Improve Patient Assessment Skills
Standardize your approach: Use consistent head-to-toe and problem-focused frameworks that capture allergies, meds, comorbidities, labs, and access history.
Screen for risk: Bleeding risk, infection risk, renal/hepatic function, fluid status, and psychosocial needs shape the plan.
Trend, don’t guess: Compare vitals, weights, and labs to baselines; subtle changes often matter most.
Close the loop: Communicate findings succinctly to the care team and clarify orders that don’t match the clinical picture.
Practice with simulation: Run through scenarios that stress test judgment—reaction management, extravasation, rapid decompensation.
How to Display Patient Assessment Skills on Your Resume
5. Pain Management
Coordinated strategies—pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic—to reduce pain and improve function before, during, and after infusions.
Why It's Important
Pain affects adherence, stress response, and healing. Better control means steadier therapy and calmer patients.
How to Improve Pain Management Skills
Assess repeatedly: Use age- and condition-appropriate scales. Reassess after interventions and document effect.
Think multimodal: Combine non-opioids, local anesthetics, heat/cold, positioning, relaxation, and distraction as appropriate.
Use PCA and smart guardrails when indicated: Program carefully, educate patients, and monitor for over-sedation and respiratory depression.
Practice safe opioid stewardship: Lowest effective dose, shortest duration, bowel regimens, and risk screening.
Educate in plain language: Dosing schedules, expected effects, side effects to report, and safe storage at home.
How to Display Pain Management Skills on Your Resume
6. Electronic Health Records (EHR)
EHRs are real-time digital charts that hold histories, meds, allergies, care plans, imaging, labs, and more—your cockpit during infusion care.
Why It's Important
Accurate, timely documentation and order management reduce errors, speed coordination, and strengthen continuity.
How to Improve Electronic Health Records (EHR) Skills
Master your system: Build specialty templates, favorites, order sets, and smart phrases that fit infusion workflows.
Leverage safety tools: Use barcode medication administration, clinical decision support, and alerts—then reconcile meds meticulously.
Document what matters: Access type, patency, dressing status, verification steps, compatibility checks, vitals by protocol, and patient education with teach-back.
Protect privacy: Follow least-necessary access, strong passwords, and clean workstation habits.
Keep skills fresh: Attend updates, learn new features, and practice downtime procedures so care doesn’t stall.
How to Display Electronic Health Records (EHR) Skills on Your Resume
7. Central Line Care
Maintenance of central venous access devices—keeping them patent, secure, and infection-free through meticulous technique and monitoring.
Why It's Important
Central line–associated bloodstream infections and device complications are serious but preventable. Great line care saves lives.
How to Improve Central Line Care Skills
Hand hygiene every touch: Before and after any line contact. No exceptions.
Aseptic access: Scrub the hub thoroughly, allow dry time, and use sterile supplies by policy.
Dressing excellence: Use CHG for skin antisepsis and consider CHG-impregnated dressings when indicated. Change transparent dressings at least every 7 days (earlier if soiled/loose); gauze dressings typically every 2 days.
Assess and reassess: Check insertion site, tunnel, and port pocket for redness, pain, swelling, drainage, or migration. Verify ongoing need; remove lines that are no longer necessary.
Maintain patency: Flush per protocol, use correct locking solutions, and replace needleless connectors as scheduled.
How to Display Central Line Care Skills on Your Resume
8. Medication Administration
Preparation and delivery of meds—often IV—with precision in dose, route, timing, compatibility, and monitoring. Safety in motion.
Why It's Important
IV medications act fast. So do errors. Tight processes prevent harm and keep therapy on track.
How to Improve Medication Administration Skills
Follow the rights of medication safety: Patient, drug, dose, route, time—and add indication, documentation, response, and education.
Independent double-checks: Required for high-alert meds like chemo, insulin drips, and concentrated electrolytes.
Use technology wisely: Barcode scanning, smart pump drug libraries, and electronic order verification reduce slips.
Do the math: Confirm infusion rates, titrations, and weight-based dosing; verify concentration and total volume.
Check compatibility: Y-sites, carriers, and concurrent infusions need deliberate review.
Monitor and escalate: Baseline vitals, scheduled checks, and rapid response to adverse effects—document promptly and clearly.
How to Display Medication Administration Skills on Your Resume
9. Patient Education
Guiding patients and caregivers through therapy steps, side effects, aftercare, and safety at home. Clear, calm, repeatable.
Why It's Important
Understanding drives adherence. Adherence drives outcomes. Education ties it together.
How to Improve Patient Education Skills
Start with needs and barriers: Literacy, language, learning style, and anxiety all shape how you teach.
Use plain language: Short sentences, simple terms, and concrete examples. Confirm understanding with teach-back.
Make it visual: Diagrams, checklists, and short videos stick better than dense text.
Customize and reinforce: Provide written summaries, dosing calendars, and phone numbers for after-hours concerns.
Follow up: A quick call or portal message after first doses can catch problems before they snowball.
How to Display Patient Education Skills on Your Resume
10. Aseptic Technique
A disciplined set of practices that keeps microbes out of places they don’t belong—devices, sites, medications, and the patient’s bloodstream.
Why It's Important
Small breaks cause big infections. Consistency protects patients and preserves access.
How to Improve Aseptic Technique Skills
Relentless hand hygiene: Before and after every patient or device contact; let antiseptics dry fully.
Right PPE, right time: Gloves, masks, eye protection, and gowns according to task and exposure risk.
Maintain sterile fields: Open supplies correctly, minimize traffic and talking, and replace any item that’s questionable.
Disinfect and dispose safely: Skin antisepsis, equipment cleaning, and sharps disposal that follows policy to the letter.
Drill the basics: Annual competencies, peer observation, and auditing keep habits tight.
How to Display Aseptic Technique Skills on Your Resume
11. Infusion Pumps
Devices that deliver precise volumes of meds, fluids, blood products, or nutrition—at the pace you prescribe.
Why It's Important
Smart programming and vigilant monitoring curb errors, sustain therapeutic targets, and keep patients safe.
How to Improve Infusion Pumps Skills
Know your models: Volumetric, syringe, PCA, elastomeric, and ambulatory pumps each have quirks—learn setup, priming, and programming deeply.
Use drug libraries and guardrails: Stick to hard/soft limits and keep libraries updated; avoid free-texting when standard options exist.
Troubleshoot fast: Differentiate occlusion vs. air-in-line vs. downstream kinks; follow a stepwise approach and recheck access patency.
Verify end to end: Correct tubing sets, anti-siphon valves, secondary hang heights, and back-check valves to prevent unintended flow.
Audit and report: Capture near-misses, alarm trends, and programming errors to improve practice and settings.
How to Display Infusion Pumps Skills on Your Resume
12. Vascular Access
Selecting, placing, and stewarding the right device—peripheral IV, midline, PICC, tunneled catheter, or port—to match therapy needs and vessel health.
Why It's Important
Access is the pathway. The right device and care plan reduce sticks, preserve veins, and prevent complications.
How to Improve Vascular Access Skills
Assess thoroughly: History, vessel quality, therapy osmolality and pH, duration, and infusion rate guide device choice.
Use ultrasound when appropriate: Improves first-attempt success and decreases infiltration and extravasation.
Choose wisely: Match catheter type, size, and site to therapy length and characteristics; think vessel preservation first.
Secure and maintain: Sutureless securement, well-fitted dressings, and consistent flushing/locking protocols maintain patency.
Watch for trouble: Recognize signs of phlebitis, infiltration, extravasation, thrombosis, and infection early—act quickly and document.
How to Display Vascular Access Skills on Your Resume
