More than 30 people attended the
Fall 2010 VAPOCC meeting hosted by
Riverside Regional Medical Center
in Newport News.
Welcome I CPOCT
International Symposium Recap
POCT
in the ER: Riverside RMC I
POCT in the ER: Heart of
Lancaster
The Importance of collaboration, communication
and compliance
Business Meeting - New 2011 President - Elect
VAPOCC president Bill
Hankins from Danville
Regional Medical Center opened the meeting
by
welcoming the attendees and thanking sponsors
Abbott POC, Thermo Fisher, MAS/RALS, Whitehat
Communications, and Roche for their support.
Bill also thanked the committee members,
Lisa Durish, Gwen Harris, and Cathy Owens for their efforts in
response to last minute changes to the meeting.
Bill explained that due to scheduling problems
with Tim Ferguson from
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VAPOCC officers Lisa Durish, Treasurer,
Cathy Owens, 2010 President-Elect, Bill Hankins,2010
President,
and Shirley Church, 2011 President-Elect. |
Accumetrics, Lou Ann Wyer
had stepped up and provided two presentations -
see below - for the meeting. Whitehat
Communications was also standing by with a
recorded webinar 'just in case'.
Bill then introduced Vivienne Coolbear,
(left) the
meeting's host from Riverside Regional Medical
Center. Viv also welcomed the
attendees and gave an an overview of the
hospital's point-of-care program and
demographics.
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Lou
Ann Wyer |
Lou Ann Wyer then gave
the first of her presentations where
she recapped the September 2010 AACC CPOCT "New
Directions in Point-of-Care and Critical Care
Testing: Innovation, Controversies, and
Partnerships" International Symposium held in
Boston. Calling it the 'best conference
she had ever attended", Lou Ann provided a nice
summary of
this
2 ½ day meeting on the emerging edge of changes
in the point-of-care field and covered a number
of topics, including; Integrating POCT into
Patient Care Pathways and Patient Outcomes;
Microbiology and Infectious Disease Testing;
Innovation and New Technologies; Point-of-Care
Partnerships; and Controversies in POC and
Critical Care Testing.
She then provided the
group with a number of online resources, in
addition to AACC and the CPOCT division, such as
www.acutecaretesting.com,
www.pointofcare.net,
Lastly, Lou Ann then
honored the newest Virginia graduates of the
AACC CPOCT
POC Specialist
Certificate Program,
an online distance learning program
consisting of eight courses that document the
knowledge and skills necessary for successful
practice as a POC specialist.
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Renee
Rountree |
The next presenter was Renee
Rountree, VP of Trauma and Emergency Services at
Riverside Regional Medical Center,
who talked about the benefits of POCT in the ER.
Renee focused primarily on how POCT,
particularly screening patients with i-STAT
testing devices, has helped to reduce the 'door
to doctor' time in the ER. In February 2007 it
took an average of two hours after walking in
the door to see a doctor. 18 months later, the
hospital started building a team of American
Board of Emergency Medicine-certified doctors,
and the door-to-doctor time immediately fell to
74 minutes. In November 2009, it dropped again
to 45 minutes, while the door-to-nurse number
was down to 30 minutes.
Kevin
Shovlin, Director of
Emergency Services, Heart of Lancaster Regional
Medical Center, stayed with the ER
focus of the day by reviewing POCT in ER and
echoed much of what Renee had said earlier.
He talked about Heart of Lancaster Regional
Medical Center's brand new hospital offers a
state-of-the-art emergency department that
features two critical care rooms, twelve exam
and treatment rooms, a radiology room, a
complete interlinked monitoring system with ICU
and Telemetry Units as well as pleasant and
comfortable waiting room for family and friends.
He particularly noted Heart of Lancaster's ER
wait time which hovers around 2 minutes!
The
meeting then broke for a great lunch provided by
Panera Bread
and
generously supplied by ThermoFisher.
Expanding
POCT Services - the importance of collaboration,
communication and compliance - was
Lou Ann Wyer's second presentation of the day
and used her experiences at Sentara Healthcare.
The explained the history of the program;
reasons for change; POCT's role in partnerships;
new processes and outcomes.
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Shirley Church |
The
meeting ended with a general business
session at which time Shirley Church, Sentara
Obici Hospital was nominated and unanimously
chosen as 2011 President-Elect for the VAPOCCs.
Shirley is one of the many POCCs working in
the Sentara Healthcare system and is currently
at Obici Hospital in Suffolk, VA.
Plans are currently
underway for a spring 2011 face-to-face meeting
and vendor fair, although the date and location
has not been determined. A fall 2011 webinar was
also discussed and is being looked into.
