Results: A Short Survey on Peripheral Vascular Procedures in the Cath Lab

If your lab is host to various disciplines, how do you handle scheduling? (88 total responses) Block Scheduling Block (2) Block boarding Scheduling the case just as cath cases, with block times. With difficulty. Block time for cath lab time is determined by patient volume and physician group. Block time based on volume Block scheduling for one room Block times and first-come, first-serve Block time for each cardiologist, with peripheral days 1-2 days per week Blocks by groups Block times till 2 days before, then schedule is open. Physician-to-physician in the event of emergency First-come, First-serve Scheduling First-come, first-serve (6) Specific days and hours are reserved for specialties, then on a first-come basis. First-come, first-serve or emergent/urgent will take priority. Radiologists prefer to schedule their cases on Tuesdays and Fridays. It is first-come, first-serve. We have one peripheral vascular room and two cardiac rooms. Our office coordinator does the scheduling and it is a first-come, first-serve basis for that room. In the event of an emergency, we will bump the scheduled case. First-come, first-serve, with each procedure scheduled for a specific amount of time according to the procedure. Only cardiologists use our lab. Each has their own day, then it is first come, first served for the add-ons. Centralized Scheduling Centralized scheduling (3) Centralized scheduling with the CVOR We have a central scheduler with input from cath lab manager. Calls go through the Booking Office. We are possibly visiting Centralized Booking in the near future. We have two rooms, one dedicated to hearts and the other dual-purpose. The dual-purpose is used for hearts and peripherals, along with implantation of devices. Each discipline must utilize our scheduling department; it is a separate entity. That way, we are not put in the middle. Limited Room Availability Certain rooms are dedicated/ geared toward certain procedures. Routinely scheduled in 1 or 2 specific rooms for the day schedules. Not all rooms are equipped to handle everything (we have 5 labs). One lab is designated for certain types of procedures while at least 2 out of the 4 labs are for coronary angiograms. Cardiologists have blocked schedules. Cath Lab Handles Scheduling for All Our staff mix contains RN and RT, with the third or fourth person being of the same discipline or RCIS. Scheduling is easy, as we are short-staffed and have one lab. We schedule all cases and coordinate with the varying disciplines to accommodate the physicians' schedules. Schedule coordinator They can only schedule through the cath lab Cardiology-Dominant Scheduling Cardiology is usually first, but it depends on the case Cardiologists take preference Cardiac comes first. Interventional cardiologists get precedence by scheduling morning appointments. EP docs schedule their longer procedures in afternoon. Scheduling by Set Days/Times Certain days are for certain procedures Time slots for certain procedures Set rotational schedule We function three days out of the week. The other two are for pre-cath lab assessments. We do not take call and are off Q [every] weekend. We have dedicated days for interventional radiology and for cardiac cath. On all days, we are available for emergent cardiac caths (i.e. ST elevation). Occasionally, depending upon the need, we may run a cath case on an IR day, but since our IR doctors come from an alternate facility, we generally can't do IR cases on cath days. Disciplines are separated into groups and follow a pre-planned grid system for off shifts/weekends/call. Each discipline self-schedules and the schedule is then edited by our scheduling staff. There are pre-determined numbers of staff that are needed for each shift and those numbers are looked at after the self-scheduling occurs. Staff are asked to move accordingly. Morning radiology, afternoon cardiology We have different days for different subspecialties. Scheduled time slots Set days for vascular, with first slot saved for in-patient heart cath add-on. Do What It Takes We have 4 state-of-the-art cath labs, one PV lab and two EP labs. All labs run at once, all day long. Stay until cases are done, whether legs or hearts. Call team will stay to do cases; backup team stays until call team is finished. An Interesting Approach We don't! Kicking and screaming, dragging the docs in to get started Not very well Very carefully! At the Beginning We are just starting this process and are still trying to figure out the best way. Everyone is being cross-trained Life is Good The interventional radiologists are also cardiologists, so there is no scheduling conflict.

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