anyone working with VAD patients?

Specialties CCU

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Hi all, I am a cardiac rehab nurse. We are now accepting for the first time VAD patients into our outpt center. Does anyone here work in a hospital where inpatients are seen by Cardiac Rehab??? How about problems you have seen????

So far, our patients are well informed in how to take care of their VADs. But, we dread the time something might go wrong.

Our heart failure center is close by our exercise center, so that at least is comforting, BUT it does not mean that someone is there ALL of the time. We have numbers to call etc. etc.

We also make sure our patients have plenty of battery life, their extra controller with them, they drink fluids while exercising, etc.

Lee

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Specializes in CTICU.

Not many apart from me :) As per your last post:

https://allnurses.com/cardiac-nursing/lvad-cardiac-rehab-438116.html

Martin, T. et al. (2009). Improved Outcomes and Decreased Length of Stay in LVAD Patients: Increased Utilization of Cardiac Rehabiliation Centers

The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, Volume 28, Issue 2, Pages S277-S277.

http://www.jeffersonnursing.org/posters/LVADSrehabunit9-09.pdf

Ueno, A. & Tomzawa, Y. (2009). Cardiac rehabilitation and artificial heart devices. J. Artificial Organs, 12(2);90-7. Epub Jun 18.

Humphrey, R. (1997). Exercise physiology in patients with LVADs. J. Cardiopulm Rehabil. Mar-Apr; 17(2): 73-75.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/483576_2

Jaski et al. (2007). Diagnosis and treatment of complications in patients implanted with a TCI LVAD. J Interventional Cardiology, 8(3): 275-282.

DeTurk et al. (2004). Cardiovascular and pulmonary physical therapy: An evidence-based approach. p532.

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=18&ved=0CDgQFjAHOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.virginia.edu%2Fuvaprint%2FHSC%2Fpdf%2F031174.pdf&rct=j&q=cardiac+rehab+LVAD&ei=dmJQS5ewBdKHkAW35MCgCg&usg=AFQjCNHbPWXEJrVfU5uTwoTTSsR2BjDo0w

www.heartbeat.org.au/.../Care%20&%20Technology%20in%20an%20Ambulatory%20Setting.ppt

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Hope that helps. If there is something specific you want to know about, just ask. I am so used to working with VADs that I forget what things you worry about when they are new!

http://www.thoratec.com has great resources if you're working with Heartmate II patients - try "euniversity"

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Contact the manufacturer and see if they'll send a rep out for an inservice. they are usually great about this. We had a VAD patient in the city I worked as a paramedic in and they sent out a rep and did one for all of our medics. Worth a shot.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

We are a VAD center. As someone else pointed out, the thoratec corporation has great info for the HMII and the XVE...although many places are phasing out the XVE. You guys definitely need inservicing on the pumps and emergency management of situations. That's not fair of your administrators to put your licenses in jeopardy like that. Having said all that, you or your educator should contact the VAD center where most of your patients are implanted. They should have VAD coordinators who could be able to set up inservices for you guys. We are also using the Heartware and Duraheart devices at my center (we have others that are for strictly inpatient use, not d/c home on) but their websites really don't have any info.

Can I help you with any specific information? My 3 best friends are all VAD coordinators and I've worked with VAD's for about 6 years now. While I"m not a know-it-all, I'm pretty good at mgt. Please feel free to contact me here or email me....do anything I can to help.

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We are a VAD center. As someone else pointed out, the thoratec corporation has great info for the HMII and the XVE...although many places are phasing out the XVE. You guys definitely need inservicing on the pumps and emergency management of situations. That's not fair of your administrators to put your licenses in jeopardy like that. Having said all that, you or your educator should contact the VAD center where most of your patients are implanted. They should have VAD coordinators who could be able to set up inservices for you guys. We are also using the Heartware and Duraheart devices at my center (we have others that are for strictly inpatient use, not d/c home on) but their websites really don't have any info.

Can I help you with any specific information? My 3 best friends are all VAD coordinators and I've worked with VAD's for about 6 years now. While I"m not a know-it-all, I'm pretty good at mgt. Please feel free to contact me here or email me....do anything I can to help.

Thanks,

I am at a heart tx center, but that does not mean that our Cardiac Rehab has had exposure to these patients. It is JUST BEGINNING. Do you have a outpt cardiac rehab program that is taking VAD patients??? Do they have policies in place??? That is the kind of help I am looking for. We have had some short trouble shooting and general VAD inservices but of course, when you have NO experience and the patients are coming in, you feel quite nervous. Fortunately, for now, our heart failure service is down the hallway from the Cardiac rehab, so we do have numbers to contact for emergency, etc. Most of the time someone is there. I am in the process of writing up guidelines so anyone's help is appreciated.

Lee RN

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Specializes in CTICU.

Contact Thoratec and tell them what you need. I am sure they would have what you need since our contributions were not helpful.

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Contact Thoratec and tell them what you need. I am sure they would have what you need since our contributions were not helpful.

I don't remember EVER saying that contributions were not helpful. Where did that come from?

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Specializes in CTICU.

I assume that people will make some type of comment or thank people if they find posts helpful. It's somewhat annoying to take considerable time to find resources for people and not receive any comment whatsoever.

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