New Questions

Free-standing Cath Labs
I am looking for data on free-standing diagnostic cath lab expense benchmarks. I need this information for the purposes of doing a business evaluation of a cath lab. I was wondering if anyone has this type of information, and if not, maybe they could point me in the right direction.
Thank you!
Aaron Sams
Email:
ASams (at) valuepointconsulting. net
Cc: cathlabdigest (at) aol.com

Post-Transradial Procedure Care
Can labs who are performing transradial procedures help us by describing their protocol post-cath?
Linda Dubois, Regional Medical Center, DuBois, PA
lmdubois (at) drmc. org
Cc: cathlabdigest (at) aol.com

Answered Questions

ORTs in the Cath Lab
I have recently been given the nurse manager position in our cath lab.
Staffing is currently the front-running issue needing to be resolved. Our hospital administration is asking that we consider using ORTs in the scrub position. Can you tell me what your community standard is; if your facility uses ORTs and/or direct me to where I would find information on the industry standards related to utilizing ORTs in the cath lab? Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.
Sandy Peterson, RN
Stockton, California
S.Peterson (at) dameronhospital. org

Ms. Peterson,
I have worked in cath labs for many years. I strongly feel it is a very unique area and that just because you can pass instruments in an OR setting does not make you a heart expert to deal with the life and death issues that can occur in the cath lab setting. Even if you are scrubbed in, you need to be able to react in the emergent situation. You must know cardiac anatomy and what goes on with all the catheters and wires used from a physiology standpoint, not just a technical one. Anyone can pin a wire, but only someone trained in interventional cardiology can know why they are pinning and what the outcome can be if you fail to do that correctly. That is a very small example.

You also asked about the industry standard. I think you will find that the vast majority of labs employ RNs, CVTs/RCISs and RTs. Depending on the lab and if they are all cross-trained, any and all may be able to scrub. I find that no matter what the specialty, RN, RCIS or RT, it takes about a year to bring people up to snuff in doing cross-trained roles in the cath lab.

Should you have further questions in this area, I would be happy to share my experience with you.

Scott Sutton, RN, BSN, RCIS
Cath Lab Coordinator
Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center
Corvallis, OR
ScottS (at) samhealth. org