Blog by: Melanie T. Gura, RN, MSN, CNS, CCDS, FHRS, FAHA, AACC
Director, Pacemaker & Arrhythmia Services
Northeast Ohio Cardiovascular Specialists
Summa Cardiovascular Institute
Summa Health System

Nurses are traditionally viewed as a caring group. We care for patients, their families, friends, and our communities. However, we must also care for each other, our fellow nurses and colleagues.

Those new to our specialty require guidance, encouragement, and mentoring. Those of us who have more experience must come to believe that mentoring is our professional responsibility, as well as an opportunity for growth. In order for us to go forward as a flourishing profession, each of us will need to play the role of both mentor and mentee throughout our professional careers.

By: Chris Atherton, RN, BSN, MPA

On August 24, 2011, the Joint Commission issued a Sentinel Event Alert concerning radiation risks of diagnostic imaging. The Alert described the issues surrounding high or repeated dosing during diagnostic procedures such as CT, nuclear medicine and fluoroscopy. Risks associated with ionizing radiation in diagnostic imaging include cancer, burns and other injuries. Patients most at risk for harm are children and young adults, pregnant women, individuals with medical conditions sensitive to radiation such as diabetes mellitus and hyperthyroidism, and individuals receiving multiple doses over time. Not included in the Alert were issues surrounding therapeutic radiation or fluoroscopy.

So, you are asking, why should we be concerned? Invasive procedures in the EP lab are done under fluoroscopic guidance, so this Alert doesn’t apply to us. Or does it?

Blog by: Melanie T. Gura, RN, MSN, CNS, CCDS, FHRS, FAHA, AACC

Since nursing is the largest percentage of the nations’ healthcare labor force and will play a critical role in helping realize the objectives of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) launched a two-year initiative in 2008, to review the need and transformation of the nursing profession. They released the IOM report on the Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health,[1] which calls for new and expanded roles for nurses in a redesigned healthcare system.

Blog by: Melanie T. Gura, RN, MSN, CNS, CCDS, FHRS, FAHA, AACC and
Suzanne Hughes, RN, MSN, CNS, FAHA, FPCNA

Under section 3022 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services must create by 2012 a Medicare “shared savings program” that permits groups of providers who meet certain statutory criteria to be recognized as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Currently, our healthcare system pays hospitals to fill their beds and provide more tests and procedures. The ACO will shift the paradigm from a volume-based health delivery system to becoming a value-based health care system. An ACO is an organization of healthcare providers who agree to be accountable for quality, cost and overall care of patients assigned to the organization.

Each year we hold our annual pacemaker clinic patient education conference. This year the theme was biological pacing, an area of intense interest with our patient families. It seems that we are in the midst of a medical evolution with emerging developments in molecular and genetics research leading to a potential future of “personalized medicine”. Is the timing ripe to let our patients learn about this? Are we possibly opening up false hopes or unrealistic expectations?

Attempts and interest in biologic pacing began in the 1960s as researchers attempted sinus node transplants, followed by discovery of the pacemaker current (known as "If" or "funny current") in the 1980s, to the use of human mesenchymal cells to transfer pacemaker genes to the heart cells in early 2000. Dr. Michael Rosen served as the keynote speaker on "Biological Pacing: Dream or Reality" at our patient conference. As Dr. Michael Rosen puts it, "We’ll get there if we keep at it!"