Nurses Planning for Shapiro
Several BWH nurses are playing a vital role in planning for the Carl J. and Ruth Shapiro Cardiovascular Center. In July, two groups made off-site visits to equipment manufacturers to get first-hand looks at the latest bedside monitors.
“Input from our nurses is critical to many of the decisions being made about patient care in the Shapiro Center,” Mairead Hickey, PhD, RN, chief nursing office and senior vice president of Patient Care Services, said. “We’re fortunate to have so many expert nurses contributing to this process.”
Several nurses traveled to Philips Medical Systems in Andover and GE in Milwaukee to compare and contrast bedside monitoring systems. “There’s quite a bit of information and details that go into making a decision for these monitoring systems, and it takes a team of clinicians to make sure we make the right decision,” Sarah Thompson, MSN, RN, nurse manager on 8CD, said.
Staff nurses also will be asked to share their clinical experience as the planning committees research other equipment, including the layout of the boom, communication systems, furniture, medication carts, and work flow processes.
For monitors, the teams reviewed the systems for size, readability, wireless capability, remote access, telemetry, data collection and database access, electronic bedside documentation, ability to interface with other systems and many other components, Thompson said. “They also wanted to get a feel for each vendor’s vision for the future of their technology and their willingness to work with us as technologies change and/or as clinicians identify future needs,” she said.
The contingent that traveled to Philips Medical Systems in Andover included Alison Gilmore, RN, 8AB nurse manager; Pavel Nelyubin, BSN, RN, 8AB; educator Jacqueline Gagnon, MS, RN, CCRN, educator on 8AB; Sarah Thompson, MSN, RN, 8CD nurse manager; Leslie Sabatino, BSN, N, 8D; Jeanne Berk, MSN, RN, 8CD educator; Mary Lou Moore, MSN, RN, CCRN, 12ABCD nurse manager; Karen Reilly, BSN, MBA, RN, Tower 12; Cathy Saniuk, MSN, RN, Advanced Heart Failure educator; Claire Lynch, BSN, RN, 10AB nurse manager; Amy Martel, RN, 10AB; Brenda Diconza, RN, assistant nurse manager in the Cardiovascular Diagnostic and Interventional Center (CDIC); Jim Rawn, MD, director Cardiac Surgery Service ICU; Chuck Labins, senior project manager for Partners and BWH Real Estate and Facilities; and L. Michael Fraai, director, and Jennifer Leigh Jackson, assistant director, both of Biomdedical Engineering.
Several nurses, including Anne Wilson, made a trip to Children’s Hospital Boston to see the Philips monitors in action on a newly outfitted unit.
Representatives from GE came to BWH and made three presentations for leadership and staff, and then offered to fly a contingent of clinicians to Milwaukee for a hands-on demonstration of the equipment. Several BWHers made the roundtrip to Milwaukee in one day, including: Gilmore; Nelyubin; Diconza; Moore; Reilly; Rawn; Fraai, Jackson; and Labins. Kathleen Avery, MSN,CCRN, educator on 12 ABCD, attended GE’s presentation at BWH.
“We really had a chance to see the monitoring systems at work, almost as if we went to our own trade show,” Gilmore said. “With such a multidisciplinary team of staff nurses, managers, educators, physicians and Biomedical sharing their input and experience, we will have a broad base of knowledge and opinion to base our decision on.”
Gilmore added how the nurses who made these trips did so on very short notice. “It was great in that everyone was willing to help us make the right decision,” she said.