Cath Lab Digest - December 2007 - (Page 20) 20 SPOTLIGHT DECEMBER 2007 The new Walter and Leonore Annenberg Pavilion is under construction at Eisenhower Medical Center. physician computerized reporting system that provides digital procedural images and integrated patient reporting. All ACC data is also put into this system. The physician reporting system has been a challenge to integrate. The special training for staff and the ongoing training for physicians is a time investment. It also requires a great deal of patience and positive reinforcement for those who are accustomed to using oral dictation reporting. The Dixie Lee Sargent, CVT, RCIS. payoff is excellent patient charting, which is easily available anywhere in the hospital and/or physician office computer systems. Overall, integrating all these systems and modalities has been worth the end result, which is ease of use and a secure source for detailed patient information. We also use the Arrow International AutoCAT Series IABP System (Everett, MA). When you need an IABP in the cath lab setting, chances are that you are too busy to stand by to constantly monitor settings. This balloon pump continuously monitors the patient’s ever-changing parameters and will adjust timing accordingly. This gives us the ability to focus directly on our patients and not on a machine. For emergent vessel clot extraction, we are using the Pronto Catheter (Vascular Solutions, Minneapolis, MN), and the Rinspirator System (FoxHollow Technologies). We have used other systems and devices, but for ease of use and performance, these two have remained in our lab. How is coding handled in your lab? We are still using a hard copy charge system per case. The coding is printed on our charge sheets. These sheets include procedures, imaging and supplies. The case updating department enters all charges, which are reviewed by the hospital coders. The charges then go electronically to the bill. One staff member (Bruce Freiman, RT) is working with the finance department to make our charges more compact. We also use a hospital-wide McKesson (San Francisco, CA) Intellishelf scanning system for supplies. The system can initiate a direct per-patient itemization and track shelf inventory. The cath lab is currently using only the inventory feature for restock purposes. How does your lab handle hemostasis? Our current cath lab layout is nearly ideal for efficient workflow. The rooms are very large and there is ample space for storage. One exception is with the new McKesson inventory system, which takes up significant space. This system replaced a prior system that fit into the space. In the future departmental move, the cath lab space will accommodate the Intellishelf. Our utilization of storage space has improved in our peripheral room via creative arrangement of old shelving. We do need a better shelving system for those supplies. We are looking forward to our new lab area. It will provide us with a third procedure room that will be dedicated to peripheral cases and the storage of those supplies. Another addition we would like for the future new peripheral room is to have even newer imaging equipment than we have at present. Technology is rapidly changing and we are attempting to keep up! The future layout will have our pre-op/recovery area in close proximity to the cath lab. There are a few features we would like to see improved or added. One feature we would like to improve is our sound system. It is difficult to hear the lab from the control room while monitoring, due to speaker quality. Another feature we would like to see improved is better control over our air conditioning system. It seems to cool at sub-zero temperatures no matter where the control gauge is set. We would also like to have a designated patient/visitor bathroom available in the department.
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