It’s always a boost to begin a new year with some exciting news, and I’m happy to announce that Dr. Morton Kern starts out 2006 as Cath Lab Digest‘s new clinical editor. He will take over from Dr. Reginald Low, CLD’s original clinical editor. We are very grateful to Dr. Low for his years of service to our publication and his help in maintaining CLD‘s tremendous popularity in the interventional cardiology community. Dr. Low’s passion for his work, his clarity and insight have all provided CLD with an extraordinary ideals towards which we continue to orient this

Our team consists of:

30 RNs

3 RN coordinators for cardiac catheterizations and percutaneous coronary interventional (PCI) procedures

3 secretaries

3 patient service associates

2 patient administration associates

1 patient care manager

1 clinical educator

7 interventional cardiologists

3 in-house invasive cardiologists

2 outside invasive cardiologists

3 interventional cardiology fellows

What is the mix of credentials at your lab, and how long have staff members been in residence?

All RN staff are ACLS-certified and hold either a co

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 important cause of adverse events during and following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Agents that inhibit platelet activity have thus become the cornerstone of the medical management of patients with cardiovascular disease and of patients undergoing PCI. Despite anti-platelet therapy, cardiovascular events still occur in a substantial number of

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 follow up planned on all patients in order to assess outcomes for new clinical devices coming into the cath lab after FDA approval. We started recruiting sites in 2002, in preparation for prospectively enrolling percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) patients by May 2003. At that time, we had four sites, and the STENT Registry has now gro

These stents have a variety of unique designs and are composed of many different materials. The polymers (or their absence thereof) are as distinctive as the drugs they elute. The following twelve companies are an example of the innovation and originality of design that thinking outside the box can create.

Allvivo (AVI) has taken a novel approach to the DES market. Rather than develop a stent and coating, they have elected to only develop the coating and leave stent manufacture to others. Jennifer Neff, PhD, Director of Technology, states, We initially were developing both stents a

Why did you choose to work in the invasive cardiology field?

I chose the cardiology field because of the personal contribution you can make to each patient. Examples of gratifying experiences include opening a totally occluded coronary artery in the middle of the night that prevented a large heart attack, sitting on an intra-aortic balloon pump in open heart surgery, performing CPR to save a patient’s life and placing a temporary pacemaker or defibrillating a patient.

Can you describe your role in the CV lab?

My role in the cath lab is to scrub in with the cardiolog

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 staff dissatisfaction due to lack of space available for holding/processing patients. There have been pre and post procedure decreases in the number of cases that are able to be managed due to length of time spent transporting patients between the observation unit and the cath lab.

Improvement in the process should result in increase

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. Whatever, but rather a fellow human being with an interesting story or two to share.

Dear Editor,

Report what your lab experienced in your last Joint Commission inspection!