May 2020 News Roundup

Cath Lab Dispatch is TCTMD’s monthly roundup of recent news tidbits from journals and medical meetings around the globe.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) has announced that COVID-19 status will now be incorporated into the NCDR Chest Pain–MI Registry and the CathPCI Registry. While software vendors work on adding the necessary COVID-19 data elements, an interim paper version is available to hospitals and health systems participating in both registries.

A study of nonagenarians undergoing TAVR shows that outcomes at 30 days and 2 years are similar to those of younger patients, Japanese researchers report in Catheterization and Cardiovascular Interventions.

The Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association (PCNA) will hold a 2-day virtual meeting in place of their Cardiovascular Nursing Symposium that was canceled due to COVID-19. Program details and free registration for the May 20-21, 2020, sessions can be found on PCNA’s website.

The May 2020 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology features an article from the ACC’s Interventional Council and the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) addressing issues facing cath labs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Health Care Management Review, Australian researchers share their results: interviews with hospital managers and staff about workplace violence revealed that, despite zero-tolerance policies aimed at protecting healthcare workers from aggressive patients, providing patient care is typically prioritized over care of oneself.

In a blog post, Mary A. Stahl, MSN, RN, of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), reviews the literature on the cardiovascular implications of COVID-19 and highlights two AACN webinars that may be useful for patient care.

The pandemic has drawn attention to the need for new and innovative care strategies, as well as the development of research policies and procedures to “ensure continuation of scientific discovery and dissemination amidst crises,” a team of critical care nurse scientists write in Heart & Lung. In an editorial, they note that while the temporary disruption to nonessential ICU-based clinical research is appropriate, promising therapies are being delayed.

A review article in the European Heart Journal discusses the need for hospital protocols to monitor potential cardiac side effects of COVID-19 therapies.

The COVID-19 Cardiology Coalition has put together a resource website managed by cardiology fellows across the United States.

Potential justification for expanding nurses’ role in the cath lab to incorporate some aspects of the work typically done by cardiovascular technologists and technicians is detailed in an article published in the British Journal of Cardiac Nursing.