“Best Economic Practices Within the Cardiac Cath Lab”: Regional Meeting Exceeds Attendees’ Expectations

The first of a series of regional meetings focusing on cath lab economics, “Best Economic Practices Within the Cardiac Cath Lab” was held Saturday, March 8th in Newark, New Jersey. The meeting impressed attendees seeking useful, practical information on maintaining quality patient care while reducing costs in their lab. “[I] learned new things that I brought back to my department to share,” noted one attendee. The information presented at the meeting “will help our cath lab save time and money,” concluded another. Speakers were Denise Busman, MSN, RN, and Bernadette Speiser, MSN, CCRN, who each drew on their own experiences from the front lines of care lab care. “[The] speakers were believable, down to earth, and understood the day-to-day workings of a cath lab,” said an attendee. Speaker Denise Busman, MSN, RN, commented, “Our goal in this program is to help cath lab clinicians and administrators alike evaluate the things they do on a daily basis. We know that quality drives economics — cost in particular. This program looks at patient management strategies in the cath lab, using cost effectiveness as a common reference point.” 

Held from 8 am to 2:30 pm and offering 4 CNEs and 4.25 CEs, the meeting addresses the challenges faced by cath lab administrators, directors, supervisors, nurses, and technologists in keeping their cath lab program compliant with new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) rules, all on a decreased budget. Topics include:

• The revised National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) bleeding risk score and bleeding avoidance strategies;
• The economics of radial versus femoral access;
• Same-day discharge and addressing barriers to doing so, especially in light of the new CMS “2 Midnight” rule;
• Managing access site complications: a multidisciplinary approach to reducing vascular complications;
• The economic benefits of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR);
• The economic benefits of percutaneous left ventricular assist devices;
• Intermediate lesion evaluation: with the changing environment of reimbursement for percutaneous coronary interventions, objective data is needed to measure lesion significance;
• Managing the contrast-induced nephrotoxicity patient.

Why is a focus on economics essential to your cath lab? “The current economic climate in the US has forced health care organizations to consider cost-effective parameters when administering therapies. Comparative efficacy dictates that clinical benefits of a treatment or process be adjusted for costs. Dominate strategies for treatment must be addressed,” said speaker Bernadette Speiser, MSN, CCRN. “In this meeting, we focused on the high-volume and high technology-driven procedures performed in a cardiac catheterization laboratory. Our goal was to combine the science of treatment modalities and cost-effective strategies to provide the hospital and the patient a ‘win-win’ collaborative relationship.” 

Your next chance to attend? 

Saturday, May 17, 2014, Chicago, Illinois 

Visit www.cathlabeconomics.com