An overview of considerations in managing a cardiac catheterization lab is provided in this article by a vice president at Corazon, a cardiology consulting firm. Issues discussed include patient safety, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction. I especially like Figure 1, which gives the following benchmarks drawn from the American College of Cardiology‘s National Cardiovascular Data Registry and from Corazon’s own proprietary database of client experience (I called the author to verify the benchmarking data sources):
- Room turnaround time
- Procedural time for left heart cath
- Procedural time for PCI procedure
- On call response time arrival-to-STEMI
- % caths with normal results
- % caths referred for medical therapy
- % caths referred for PCI
- % caths referred for surgery
- % patients sent from cath lab for emergency surgery
- Stent use per case
Source: Newell, A. Cardiac catheterization laboratory management: the fundamentals. Radiology Management;34(3):38-43, May/June 2012. No free full text copy. Click here for publisher’s website: http://www.ahraonline.org/am/custom/rm_search.aspx?cid=17916 Posted by AHA Resource Center, (312) 422-2050, rc@aha.org
Filed under: Benchmarking, Best practices, Efficiency, Hospital departments, Imaging, Posted by Kim Garber | Tagged: Cardiac cath lab benchmarks |
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