January 2006

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Volume 14 Issue 1

Editorial Staff

Clinical Editor
Morton Kern, MD
Executive Editor
Laurie Gustafson
Managing Editor
Rebecca Kapur
Production Manager
Elizabeth Vasil

Editorial Correspondence

Rebecca Kapur, Managing Editor, Cath Lab Digest
HMP Communications, 70 E. Swedesford Rd
Suite 100, Malvern PA 19355
Telephone: (440) 717-0418

Fax: (866) 896-8762
Email: rkapur@hmpglobal.com
Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, I appreciated the Cath Lab Digest November 2005 article, Recruitment and Retention: A Cath Lab Perspective by Dennis Holloway and found it to be very accurate, based on my experience in the cath lab. Working in a variety of cath labs ov…
Joint Commission: Pre- and Post-Inspection
Report what your lab experienced in your last Joint Commission inspection! See what Joint Commission inspectors are focusing on in advance of your JCAHO inspection. Make sure you have your procedures and processes up to JCAHO standards and expectat…
January 2006 News and Events from the Society of Invasive Cardiovascular Professionals (SICP)
Chapter News OREGON: The Oregon Chapter of the SICP held its second meeting on November 17, 2005. A total of 26 cardiovascular professionals attended the event. Two facilities (Oregon Heart and Vascular Institute, and Oregon Cardiology Diagnostic…
President's Message
I hope this message finds you well-rested from the busy holiday season and ready for 2006. 2005 was a very productive year for the SICP, and our momentum will continue into the new year. You challenged the Society to provide more in the way of member…
What Do You Think?
Can you help your fellow professionals with the following NEW questions? RCIS: Clinical Ladder Does anyone have a clinical ladder for RCIS? I think it's a good question and would serve to advance our credential and practice if we had a model to wo…
Clinical and Industry News
Radi Medical Systems Announces 2006 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Payment Rates for Myocardial Fractional Flow Reserve (FFRmyo) Radi Medical Systems, Inc. announced that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved the proposed 20…
PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) “ One Facility's Optimization of Patient Experience in Community Hospital East Cath Lab
Cath Lab Opportunity Statement An opportunity exists with the outpatient cath lab process, beginning with the registration of the patient and ending with the patient’s arrival in the cath lab. The current process causes patient, physician and staf…
At the Crossroads
At the Crossroads offers a change of pace from our usual clinical fare. Here we can read about the life endeavors of our patients. It may help us remember that this patient in front of us on the cath table is not #5 for the day in this room with Dr…
Figure 1. The VerifyNow Device (Accumetrics Inc., San Diego CA). Whole blood within a 3.2% citrate Vacuette® tube is gently inverted 3 to 5 times and incubated at room temperature for 10 minutes. An aspirin or P2Y12 assay device is inserted into the i
Emerging Concepts in the Response to Antiplatelet Therapy
However, luminal thrombosis after coronary plaque rupture is the proximate cause of acute coronary syndromes (unstable angina, non-ST elevation myocardial infarction, and ST-elevation myocardial infarction). Coronary thrombosis is also as an importan…
Adjusted hazard ratios for time to event comparing SES- and PES-only procedures.
The STENT Registry: A Real-World Look at Sirolimus- and Paclitaxel-Eluting Stents
What is the STENT Registry? The Strategic Transcatheter Evaluation of New Therapies (STENT) Registry is a multi-center group that was founded in 2003. The original purpose of the effort was to have a large, multi-center registry with late clinical f…