CathLab Digest

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CLINICAL EVENTS CALENDAR

  • Start
    Oct 22,2008
    End
    Oct 23,2008
    The Joint Commission Presents Laboratories: Accreditation Essentials (Beginner: 10/22; Advanced 10/23)
    www.cathlabdigest.com
  • Start
    Oct 23,2008
    End
    Oct 23,2008
    Introduction To Cardiovascular Cath Lab
    www.socalmeded.com
  • Start
    Oct 25,2008
    End
    Oct 25,2008
    Cath Lab Basics ‘08 with Dr. Morton Kern and Dr. Michael Lim
    www.cathlabdigest.com/basics2008/
  • Start
    Oct 30,2008
    End
    Oct 30,2008
    Introduction To Cardiovascular Cath Lab
    www.socalmeded.com

Non-Accredited Education

CLINICAL EXPERIENCE WITH A NEW HYBRID CORONARY WIRE
On Demand Web Archive
Non-Accredited
Target Audience: Physicians, nurses, and technologists.
This activity is supported by an educational grant from Terumo Medical Corporation.

Issue

  • What is the size of your cath lab staff and facility?

    South Carolina Heart Center is a freestanding outpatient facility, privately owned by our physician partners. We have 24 cardiologists; six are interventionalists. South Carolina Heart Center has 3 cath labs, one of which is a dual lab for both peripheral and cardiac procedures. We have 15 private and family-friendly patient rooms where pre and post procedures occur. We employ 11 full-time staff and 3 part-time staff: 2 full-time registered nurses (RNs), 2 medical assistants, 4 cardiovascular technologists (CVTs), 3 part-time RNs, and 1 administrative assistant. Years of service range from 1 to 14 years, with 8 years being the average time spent working in the cath lab.
    Our facility also houses a 64-slice CT scanner, nuclear medicine department, clinical research, as well as a clinical area for physician office visits.

    What types of procedures are performed at your facility?

  • 9:30 am. September 1st, a day I will never forget. It was Labor Day. It started as a very windy day with a lot of cloud cover. The sun was nowhere to be seen.

    I had just started my rounds. Standing next to a patient in the ICU, I called Jason, our cath lab director. I was apprehensive, having just seen the news on television that Hurricane Gustav (Figure 1) was about to make landfall. My patient was a 41-year-old male with ongoing chest pain and ST-segment elevations in lateral leads just admitted to the ICU. After Jason answered the phone, I explained to him the need to open the cath lab before the hurricane. Most of the cath lab crew lives within 30 minutes of the hospital. I was confident that we could do the PCI and have just enough time to get the crew back home before the hurricane hit. Jason agreed, so we sent the call out.

  • Utilization of laser ablation and intragraft glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitors via ClearWay therapeutic infusion catheter to improve procedural safety

    We describe a complex thrombotic saphenous vein graft (SVG) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) case resolved with the aid of laser atherectomy and ClearWay™ (Atrium Medical Corporation, Hudson, NH) local abciximab delivery.

  • LUMEN takes place February 26-28, 2009, at the Loews Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. More information is available online at www.LumenAMI.com

    Cath Lab Digest talks with meeting director Sameer Mehta, MD, FACC, and LUMEN’s four co-directors, each managing a crucial topic: Emergency Medicine, Door-to-Balloon Processes, Interventional Cardiology and Cardiovascular Nursing.

    Director, LUMEN:
    Sameer Mehta, MD, FACC

    Why have a meeting focusing solely on STEMI interventions?

  • Managed care has heightened health care professionals’ awareness of the need to provide cost-effective care without compromising quality, a goal that is typically accomplished by providing evidence-based best practice(s). Management of the arterial access site represents a fundamental component of every procedure performed in the cath lab, and has substantial cost and patient care implications. In most laboratories, the two predominant methods to attain hemostasis following femoral artery sheath removal are 1) application of direct manual pressure, or 2) use of a mechanical closure device. These competing techniques involve a variety of potential tradeoffs related to cost, safety, patient comfort, resource utilization and patient flow through the laboratory (Table 1), and their relative use varies among cath labs.

  • Multi-Device Strategies Using Guide Catheters, Distal Vascular Protection Devices and Aspiration Catheters

  • ABSTRACT: Resurrection Medical Center implemented an initiative to address patients presenting with an ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). This facility followed their performance improvement process using evidence-based strategies in order to comply with standards set by accrediting bodies. Quality improvement staff nurses take an active role in this practice. Because of this quality initiative, there has been a positive effect on the quality of care on this specific patient population.

    Quality Today

    Quality initiatives are a hot topic in today’s healthcare arena. Healthcare consumers now can pick and choose where they receive healthcare services. Consumers want and expect the best treatment and care when they walk into a healthcare facility. Yet patients do not always receive the best in quality.1 Because of consumers’ interest in excellence and compliance with quality indicators, healthcare facilities are looking to improve their quality scores.

  • Sameer Mehta, MD, FACC, MBA, is studying ST-elevation myocardial infarction interventions in his work with short door-to-balloon time primary PCI and the Single INdividual Community Experience REgistry for Primary PCI (SINCERE) database at 5 community hospitals in Miami, Florida, now over 365 patients. A past chief of interventional cardiology and director of the cardiovascular laboratory at Cedars Medical Center in Miami, as well as former President of the American Heart Association (Miami Dade Division), Dr. Mehta is a Voluntary Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Miami-School of Medicine. Dr. Mehta is also president of the Indo-American Society of Interventional Cardiologists (ISIC) and a course director for LUMEN 2009: The Symposium on Optimal Treatments for Acute MI (www.lumenAMI.com). He has recently published the Textbook of STEMI Interventions (available through HMP Communications at http://www. stemiinterventions.com).

  • This monthly column in Cath Lab Digest reviews important points of distinction in drug-eluting stents, from characteristics to techniques, to provide valuable and relevant information about this technology.

All Subscriptions are FREE to qualified cardiology professionals

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CME Showcase

Diagnosing Coronary Artery Disease: Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging Solutions

Complimentary accredited web archive
This activity is intended for physicians, nurses, and technologists.

Treatment Options for the AF Patient
Complimentary Accredited Dinner Symposium
This activity has been developed for physicians, nurses, and technologists who treat patients with arrythmias.


A-fib Ablation:
Practical Solutions
for the Real World

Complimentary Accredited Lunch Symposium
This activity has been developed for physicians, nurses, and technologists who treat patients with atrial fibrillation.




New Standards of Care for CRMD Antibiotic Protection

Complimentary CME Accredited Webcast

Dates:
November 18, 2008
Time: 6:00 pm ET
November 19, 2008
Time: 3:00 pm ET

This activity is sponsored by the North American Center for Continuing Medical Education.

LUMEN 2009 - THE SYMPOSIUM ON OPTIMAL TREATMENTS FOR ACUTE MI

Live Symposium

Date: February 26-28
Location: Loews Miami Beach Hotel
Miami Beach, Florida 33139

This activity is sponsored by the North American Center for Continuing Medical Education.

Hemostasis Management in Today’s Cath Lab

Complimentary Accredited Web Archive

Release Date: June 19, 2008
Expiration Date: June 19, 2009
Target Audience: This activity has been developed for physicians, nurses, and technologists.
This activity is supported by an educational grant from Radi Medical Systems, Inc.

REVIEW OUR OTHER
CARDIOLOGY BRANDS

Check out our other resources for healthcare professionals of all specialties.

  • EP Lab Digest
  • Invasive Cardiology
  • Vascular Disease Management
  • Cath Lab Basics