Cath Lab Digest - November 2007 - (Page 17)

17 every Tuesday morning for a full hour. This time is also utilized to cover departmental updates and concerns that arise. Every January, a sign-up list for new or review topics is posted. Topics are then assigned to every staff member to research and present on a scheduled Tuesday throughout the year. Our vendors also offer CEU programs, and are invited to join us in our lounge to introduce or demonstrate the use of a new device or product. Our staff also benefits from opportunities to attend out-of-town conferences, meetings, various seminars, workshops and lectures. How do you handle vendor visits to your lab? All formal visits to the cardiac catheterization laboratory are scheduled in advance. Our materials management coordinator, Kelly Campau, is responsible for vendor visits in accordance with specific hospital policy guidelines. A primary vendor is allowed one visit per week. A non-primary vendor may schedule only one day per month. Vendors are encouraged to schedule appointments with the individual physicians or cardiac catheterization management. To protect patient privacy, visitation by vendors is limited to the cardiac catheterization laboratory lounge or conference room. Only at the request of a specific physician is a vendor able to proceed to a patient care area. HFHS policy requires vendors to wear plain black scrubs, minus any logos or names, so that vendors are easily identifiable by our staff. HFHS also requires vendors to attend a class where they learn and receive copies of our policies regarding the Code of Conduct, patient information privacy rules (HIPPA), pharmacy, supply chain management, and prevention and detection of fraud and abuse. Certification is an annual process, much like what is required for our staff and volunteers to go through for compliance training. After the class the vendor is given a badge, valid for one year. How is staff competency evaluated? Staff competency is evaluated on an ongoing basis. Our staff takes written competency quizzes at our Tuesday morning inservices. These competencies are designed to help maintain and strengthen our staff’s proficiency in the multifunctional modalities that we engage on a dayto-day basis. Competency is evaluated as part of the employee’s annual performance appraisal. Henry Ford Health System “University” also requires every employee to complete a computer-based learning program to review and update hospital competencies involving fire, chemical and personal safety, infection control policies, ergonomics, HIPPA regulations and emergency preparedness. Does your lab have a clinical ladder? Currently, we do not have a clinical ladder. Does your lab utilize any alternative therapies (such as guided imagery, etc.)? Our patients are offered warm blankets pre and post procedure for comfort. In the cath lab suites, we have Bair Hugger Blankets (Arizant Healthcare Inc., Eden Prairie, MN). Televisions are available at each patient’s bedside preand post-procedure. How does your lab handle call time for staff members? We are provided guidelines for self-scheduling every month with rotational weekend call, vacation and time off requests added prior to distribution by management. We currently have one call team that consists of 2 RNs to circulate and 1 technologist to perform hemodynamic monitoring and provide documentation for final procedural report. All cath lab staff is expected to take call. Weekday call begins at 6:00pm and continues until 6:00am the following morning. Those who are on call are considered “post call” or the late shift the following day and are not required to report to work until 10:00am. This “post call” or late shift is scheduled to stay from 10:00am until the work is complete. Weekends start at 6:00pm Friday and end at 6:00am Monday morning. Call averages 1 day per week and every fourth weekend for technologists. Nurses average 1 day per week and every fifth weekend. Within what time period are call team members expected to arrive to the lab after being paged? All call team members are expected to arrive within 45 minutes, with most arriving sooner. We have collaborated practice with our coronary intensive care unit (CICU) so that five multidisciplinary RNs are Kathleen Arnold RN BSN RCIS, Henry Kim MD MPH, Director, Kathleen Arnold RN BSN RCIS, Henry Kim MD MPH, Director, Cardiology Fellowship. Cardiology Fellowship. As technology and techniques evolve in the catheterization lab, we will continue to see significant advances in percutaneous strategies to treat both congenital and acquired structural heart and vascular disease. Concomitantly, there will be greater interaction and interfacing of specialties such as cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery, vascular surgery, and interventional radiology. From an educator’s standpoint, it is very exciting and gratifying not only to be able to offer these advances to our patients, but also to include them in our training program curriculum for our cardiology fellows. However, in addition to ensuring procedural proficiency in our trainees, it is just as important to train them in the appropriate utilization and application of these technologies. — Henry Kim, MD, MPH, Director Cardiology Fellowship

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cath Lab Digest - November 2007

Henry Ford Heart and Vascular Institute Treating Patients with Complex Vascular Disease with a Multi-Disciplinary Approach Improving Patient Compliance with Antiplatelet Medications Clinical Editor’s Corner Cath Lab Nurse/Tech Vascular Access and Closure Using the StarClose® Device The Clinical and Economic Impact of Measuring Fractional Flow Reserve FFR and Choosing an Optimal Revascularization Strategy Finally! The New Registered Cardiac Electrophysiology Specialist (RCES) Credential Use of a Mobile Lab to ‘Test the Waters’ at a Rural Hospital Remembering a Cardiac Cath Lab History ACVP• Membership Page What Do You Think? The Ten-Minute Interview with… Ernie Livingston, RN, BSN SICP* Chapter Updates Who’s in Charge? Working to Eliminate Bottlenecks: Florida Hospital’s Cardiac Cath Lab Achieves Greater Efficiency and Higher Satisfaction Preserving Left Ventricular Function during Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Ask the Clinical Instructor: A Q&A Column for Those New to the Cath Lab Making the Most of Your First Impression: Interviewing Tips and Techniques CEU Education Center Clinical & Industry News Meetings Calendar

Cath Lab Digest - November 2007

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