Cath Lab Digest

Our staff includes 16 members total. Nine are registered radiology technologists, five of which hold the Registered Cardiovascular Invasive Professional (RCIS) credential. Two techs work in both EP and cath. Our lab also includes 7 registered nurses, including our nurse manager. In addition, three of the nurses hold an RCIS credential and act as our main cath lab nurses. Two nurses are designated EP and the other is a pre-op/post-op nurse for our five-bed holding area. All staff are trained in ACLS and balloon pump insertion. We also have a wonderful secretary who handles all the scheduling, f

The length of tenure in our lab ranges from 2 years to 6 months. We are very lucky that we have low staff turnover.

What type of procedures are performed at your facility?

We perform approximately 90 procedures per week, ranging from simple diagnostic to more complex coronary, peripheral and structural repairs (i.e., patent foramen ovale [PFO] closure, atrial septal defect [ASD] repairs, etc.). Our annual volume of coronary diagnostic and interventional procedures is 4,395. Our annual peripheral procedure volume is 255.

Does your cath lab perform primary angioplast

What type of procedures are performed at your facility?

A variety of procedures are performed on approximately 125 adult patients per week. Procedures include angioplasty, stenting, AngioJet® thrombectomy (Possis Medical, Inc., Minneapolis, MN) and Export Aspiration Catheter (Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN), iLab Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) (Boston Scientific, Maple Grove, MN), FilterWire (Boston Scientific, Natick, MA), PolarCath (CryoVascular Systems, Inc./Boston Scientific), SmartWire Pressure System (Volcano Therapeutics, Inc., Rancho Cordova, CA), directional coronary atherecto

We have approximately 60 full-time employees (FTEs), composed of registered nurses (RNs), radiology technologists (RTs) and cardiovascular (CV) technologists. Most staff members have been with TIHH since it opened in 2003.

We also have three service specialists working under our managers. Unlike managers, however, these specialists have network-wide responsibility to support their individual service. Our EP Service Specialist is Viji Isaiah, BSN, RN, our Cath Service Specialist is Jerry Boyle, RCIS, LPN, and our PV Service Specialist is Scott Shultz, RT(R)(CV). The service specialists a

Our cath lab team consists of the following: five RNs, four RT(R)s, one cardiovascular technologist (CVT)/ Registered Cardiovascular Invasive Specialist (RCIS), two clerical/support staff, and one cath lab director. We are under the direction of an administrative and a medical director of the cardiac cath lab.

The majority of team members have been working together for over ten years, although one of our registered nurses (RNs), Sue Salimaki, is new to the cath lab environment. At the time of this article’s publication, a new cath lab director, Cindy Olson, RN, will also have joined our t