Can you help your fellow professionals with the following NEW questions?

Young Female Patients
Do other cath labs have policies on pre menopausal female patients? We are seeing more and more young women needing cath and EP procedures. Do other labs require urine pregnancy tests pre-procedure or just accept a yes or no to the question, Any chance that you are pregant?
Melinda Lyon, RCIS, RDCS, North Shore Medical Center, Salem, MA
Email: melindalyon@partners.org

Groin Prep
I would like to know what other cath labs™ procedure is for prepping the groin area. Do you place a towel between the legs and prep, or do you prep the entire genital area without a towel down the center for patient privacy?
Anonymous by request
Email: cathlabdigest@aol.com

Peer Review
Does your cath lab conduct peer reviews? If so, by what method? Anonymous? Face-to-face? Online or on paper? How do you have technologists of different levels evaluate each other? Do the physicians have input on these evaluations?
Filiz Demirci, BS, RCIS, Maine Medical Center Cardiac Cath Lab
Email: demirf@mmc.org
CC: cathlabdigest@aol.com

Sheath Removal
I am wondering if you have a basic competency available for sheath removal. Our ICU nursing staff will very shortly be expected to pull sheaths and it would be tremendously helpful to have a basic competency to work with if possible.
Lynn M. Wright, RN, MA, MSN, Clinical Nurse Specialist
Passaic Beth Israel Regional Medical Center
Email: lmwright@pbih.org
CC: cathlabdigest@aol.com

Infection Rates
I™m looking for information on cath lab infection rates. If any labs are interested in sharing, please email.
Anonymous by request
Email: cathlabdigest@aol.com

Cervical and Lumbar Damage from Lead Aprons
Do you as a cath lab professional suffer from cervical and/or lumbar disc damage? My suspicion is that wearing the lead as often and for as long as we do, that the weight is causing a significant percent of our professionals™ to suffer lifetime damage!
Bob Basile
Email: bobstero@ptd.net
Cc: cathlabdigest@aol.com

I have three thoracic discs that are herniated. My physician says they are from some time of compression.
Stephanie Olsen, RN
St. Mark™s Hospital
Murray, Utah

Last year I underwent a decompression and internal fixation of C3-C4 herniated disc which ruptured while wearing lead at work. I have been working in a cath lab for six years, full-time. I gradually noticed increasing neck and shoulder pain over the preceding 12 months. However, I did not seek medical help prior to the acute injury.
Debbie Webber
Warringal Private Hospital
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Email: debbie.webber@affinityhealth.com.au

Questions on the Bair Hugger Warming Blanket
We recently started using the Bair Hugger® (Arizant Healthcare) underbody warming blanket for our patients in the cath lab. On a few cases, the physicians were concerned that the patient warming system may cause sustained vasodilation. In my search, I have only found information pertaining to the OR environment.
Do you have any independent information on forced air warming systems for the cath lab patient? I'm also interested how exactly other cath labs are using this system. Are they just pre-warming the patient? Are they keeping the unit on low throughout the case? What specific cardiac or neurologic contraindications exist for a patient warming system?
Ruth Reupold, RN
Cath lab staff, French Hospital
Email: Ruth.Reupold@chw.edu
Cc: cathlabdigest@aol.com