How were the nurse and technologist access and closure program started at INOVA Fairfax Hospital?
The initial access program was started 20 years ago with several physicians and a small staff. At that time the program had no formal structure. Physicians would work with individual cardiac technologists instructing them and guiding them through the vascular access procedures. As the staff grew and more cardiac technologists showed interest in training, a greater need for the documentation of individual competency was required and a formal program was developed. In October of 2000, the CCL instituted an educational and evaluation program with physician involvement for cardiac technologists/nurses seeking privileges in arterial and venous access. Closure procedures that were traditionally performed by the cardiac technologists/nurses required 15 to 20 minutes of manual or clamp pressure and five to six hours of patient bed rest. In 1988 we conducted and published a study on 1,026 patients comparing the rate of complication when Vasoseal® VHD (Datascope Corporation, Mahwah, NJ) was depl
