Deaconess Update

We've had a very busy start to our work week...or at least it felt that way! Our scanner went down overnight and today was a bit chaotic to start. It turns out that we've had some air conditioning problems in our VCT room. This is our 64 slice scanner and it puts some heat out! We use it all the time and it just doesn't really get a break, even at night. So, we had to call engineering and maintenance and get it taken care of. Apparently, the ducts had not been cleaned out for quite some time causing the air conditioning to not work the best. But, by 1030 am we were all cooled down and running smoothly again!!!

Clinicals Update

We've been really busy the past few weeks in the CT department at Main and Gateway. Yesterday we were hopping from the ER all day! We had a gentleman with a history of a fall come over for a CT chest, abdomen and pelvis. Of course, we were looking for trauma related pathology, but unfortunately, the patient ended up with an abnormal lesion in his chest. The fall of course is bad, but it could have saved his life! He was asymptomatic and had no cancer history. The radiologist recommended a biopsy so I am sure that we will be seeing him back in a few weeks once he has healed up from his fall.

Clinical Update

Hello all! I hope everyone is having a great semester. Things are moving along for me. Our hospital is beginning to ramp up for our HFAP survey. HFAP is a hospital accreditation similar to JCAHO. Many hospitals are moving to this type of survey. Right now we are really working hard on our Stroke Indicators. With our Stroke Certification we must do alot of PI (performance indicators) to show what our turn around times are. I am given a list of patients that coded out as a stroke and then must audit their charts for their CT head or CTA head results and then also their CXR's. We are supposed to have results to the ordering physician in 45 minutes. For the most part, we are very good at what we do. CT is a well-oiled machine in most cases. Of course, there are always an outlier or two that needs a little research. It helps alot that I still go back and watch staff and scan. It is a huge help to get buy in from staff and also to develop policies that actually work.