Category Archives: Protocols

RaCC/Cardiac Room Orientation

 

The Cardiac Room, also known as the “RACC Room” (Resuscitation and Critical Care) is the critical care area of the Elmhurst ED. The sickest patients in the department are seen here. There are 4 cardiac bays although you may use the adjoining trauma room for 3 additional critical care bays if needed.  When the cardiac room overflows into the trauma room try and leave one available bed for the trauma team unless it is absolutely impossible. Unlike the sides or fast track you do not get to pick up patients at your leisure. You must see each patient immediately when they arrive. Patients either come from Triage or the sides.  Patients who are presented to the cardiac room from the side may have had a partial work-up done by another provider or they may have decompensated prior to be seen by the side team.  You may also be asked to care for patients who are still in the emergency department that have been admitted and are awaiting an inpatient bed but decompensate before leaving the ED.

The Cardiac Room is staffed by one resident and one dedicated attending.  This shift provides you with a lot of one on one time with your attending and makes for great teaching and learning.  This is your best chance to engage your attending and really pick their brain for the intricacies and details of resuscitative care.  In addition the cardiac room provides you with an excellent chance to practice critical procedures.  Try and explore your patients’ pathology in-depth and “wrap them up” as much as possible before releasing them to the floor services partly for the patient’s good and partly for your own learning and practice.

On occasion there may be an intern or medical student shadowing in the cardiac room with you.  This is their introduction to the Cardiac Room and please help make it beneficial for them.  Take them with you as you set up the room (discussed below).  Teach them the basics of ED critical care medicine and show them how to use ventilators and perform essential procedures.  It is also an excellent opportunity to show them the location of all required equipment present in the back.

 

Pre-Shift Preparation

 

At the beginning of your shift. first priority is to prepare the room for the arrival of a potentially critically ill patient.  It is not uncommon that critical patients arrive without EMS pre-notification, therefore all necessary resuscitation equipment should always be immediately available and ready to use.  Review the RACC pre-shift checklist (available in the resource binder next to the attending computer) and begin by preparing the video laryngoscope cart.  The failed airway drawer should be stocked with a scalpel, 6.0mm portex trach, and both sizes of LMA with a syringe. Each resuscitation bay headwall should be standardized with O2 delivery supplies, BVM and face shields.  The ventilator should always have clean tubing connected as well as inline filters attached.  The Zoll defibrillator should be in a visible position beside the bay monitor, connected to defibrillator pads and the Zoll mainstream EtCO2 detector should have a clean adapter.  The ultrasound machine should be in its place, plugged in and charging with adequate supply of gel and chucks.  Is the tox/antidote kit available, stocked and are you familiar with its contents?  Next, review the RACC critical equipment inventory verifying adequate stock of equipment in the Pyxis units, the shelving above the trauma computers and the appropriate bluebin racks.  Keep in mind where each item is located for when you need it.  Finally, check the respiratory equipment stock in the green drawers below the sink. If any items are low stock (eg. only 1 transvenous pacemaker kit left? 2 pigtails? 1 small NIV mask?), contact the appropriate department listed on the inventory contact list. 
 
Ask yourself during prep, “Do I know how to use every item that we have stocked?” Reuben’s general start of shift checklist is a great review of emergency procedures and strategies you should be prepared for during every shift.  Take some time before your shift reviewing procedures you are either unfamiliar with or haven’t done for awhile.  EHCED is a fairly good repository of institution equipment specific procedure tutorials.  Use the search bar to find old posts and tutorials. If you have any questions regarding equipment, supplies or anything else Elmhurst critical care related email cmeyersmd@gmail.com or call 917-749-1004.
Can’t find an item?  Check the RACC critical inventory for location and reference the floor map below. 

Workflow

Patients will arrive from the triage, brought in by EMS, or sent from the sides in extremis.  Unlike your typical side patients, therapeutic intervention often needs to occur in parallel with diagnostic interventions.  When a patient first enters the Cardiac Room perform a rapid focused assessment of the patient’s airway, breathing and ventilatory status, circulatory status, and neurologic/mental status.  All patient should be exposed to look for concerning skin findings.  You may need to intubate some patients on arrival.  Use ultrasound and the RUSH exam liberally to further clarify a patient’s clinical status.

Resuscitative and critical care can be thought of as consisting of two parts.  The first part is action and the second part is detail.  Once you patient is stabilized (or you have assured yourself that they are not in immediate cardiopulmonary or neurologic threat) then turn your attention to detail and begin gathering information pertaining to their present illness and medical history.  Consider forming your assessment of the patient by organ system as you would in an ICU for your most critically ill and complex patients.  Do not forget trauma and toxicology as categories of this assessment unique to emergency medicine.

 

Unique cases include STEMIs and strokes.  For both of these presentations you will work closely with an outside service and page them via the emergency paging system.  This system is reached by dialing 41911 and you should give your name and request a “stroke code” or, for STEMIs, a “C-PORT code” accordingly.  After this you should continue your critical care assessment as usual.  You will be called by the appropriate team (the stroke resident or CPORT fellow) and briefly present the case for them to come to the ED.  A potential pitfall is permitting patients to leave the ER without vascular access due to a desire to expedite their imaging.  Do not allow this to happen even if your consultants request it.  Vascular access (often peripheral or — if that is not possible –central access) is a necessity in order for any critically ill patient to be stable to leave the Cardiac Room and go to imaging.  We are the most skilled specialty in obtaining vascular access and the appropriate tools for doing so are located in the Cardiac Room–not radiology!

 

 

Triage and the Sides

You and your attending will be asked to evaluate patients in triage who are indeterminate in their need for critical care.  Your attending will likely handle this task during your initial shifts but you will be asked to see patients in triage and make a determination on behalf of your attending as the year progresses and your skills develop.   You may begin refusing people to the Cardiac Room as your experience increases, however all patients that are refused need to be run by the Cardiac Room Attending.  Emergency Medical Services may bring patients directly to the cardiac room, bypassing triage, if they are in sufficient extremis.  These patients demand your immediate attention and resuscitative efforts as they are often in cardio-pulmonary distress, experiencing a STEMI, or a stroke.  You will also be asked to receive those patients who decompensate on the side or need closer care.  Your attending will ultimately determine which of these patients are accepted or declined.

Once patients are stabilized and no longer require resuscitation, active critical care, or close monitoring it is important to send them out to the sides as they await their disposition.  Critical care space is limited and it is important to preserve it for new critically ill patients.  However, even though a patient has been sent to the side they remain your responsibility.  Those patients who will ultimately be discharged or require ongoing care before they are admitted should be visited by you for re-evaluation at regular intervals and to update them regarding the progress in their care.

 

Admitted Patients and Sign out in the Cardiac Room

All patients in the cardiac room are actively managed by you regardless of their admission status.  However, the cardiac room functions as an “open” unit in the sense that when patients are admitted but too unstable to leave the cardiac room you provide critical care in coordination with a primary team that will be also entering orders.  Patients who fall into this category are often admitted to stepdown (called A4) as those patients admitted to an ICU tend to leave for beds very quickly.  Coordinate your care with the inpatient team but always remember that you are the final arbiter of care if patients begin to decompensate.  In this case you do not need the primary team’s permission to intervene and have an obligation to do so.  All patients who require transport to an ICU must be accompanied by a physician per Elmhurst policy.  During the day a resident from the receiving unit will often come down for the patient, but at night most units are staffed by only one resident and as such you will need to accompany many of your patients in order to ensure their effective final disposition.

Always ask yourself “who can I downgrade next?” This not only keeps you involved in the care of the admitted patients but optimizes the room for the next patient.  Cardiac room sign out should be task focused but as comprehensive as necessary.  Think in terms of what needs to be done to safely downgrade your patient to the side and free up space.  Is the patient on NIV? When were they last given a chance off NIV?  Is your DKA patient on an insulin drip?  CHF patient still on nitro?  You may find the RACC critical handoff worksheet to be helpful to organize your sign out, copies should be located in the binder next to the attending computer.

ELMHURST UPDATES – WELCOME TO BLOCK 4, TRAUMATIC BRAIN AND SPINAL INJURY PROTOCOLS

Changes, Updates, Important Information

  • When you are on a cardiac room shift or trauma shift, please arrive a few minute early to check that your supplies are well stocked and airway boxes are ready to go. When you use supplies and airway boxes, don’t forget to reset.
  • ​If a patient leaves during evaluation (this means “provider in” is clicked, orders of any kind are placed, any note is written by a midlevel or attending provider) please indicate “Left During Evaluation” and NOT “Eloped” or “LWBS…”in the Dispo section of the chart.
  • Current drug shortages: kayexelate, epipen
  • Psychiatry consults: (Do not use the paging operator, amion is not yet updated)
    • ​Mon-Fri 8a-5p call 6-6934 (cordless); OR as backup page 40524 for the consult attending
    • Mon-Fri 5p-8a, weekends, holidays page 15094 – consult resident; OR as backup call the Bell attending 6-4750 (cordless)
Discharges
  • Patients from Rikers Island who are discharged back to Rikers should have printed copies of their:
    • (1) H&P and consultant notes (i.e. psych notes);
    • (2) “ED to PCP summary” (i.e. results of diagnostic studies); and
    • (3) AVS (i.e. clear discharge instructions with medication recommendations)
    • (4) placed in a sealed envelope and handed to the Corrections Officer, NOT the patient​
  • Please provide “Procedural Sedation” and “Stroke and TIA Prevention”  discharge instructions to patients as appropriate.
  • Please take the time to schedule appropriate follow up appointments for patients. This is especially important for our Elmhurst population with generally poor health literacy.
  • All patients diagnosed and treated or suspected and treated for a sexually transmitted illness (STI) MUST be followed up in the Sexual Health Clinic (SHC).  Discharge clerks can schedule appoints as early as the next business day. This includes women treated for possible PID, men with confirmed or suspected GC/Chlamydia and anyone with suspected/confirmed syphilis.  
  • Newly diagnosed HIV positive patients are to be referred to the ID clinic NOT to the SHC.  There are resources in the SHC for face-to-face patient counseling, HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PreP) medication and partner surveillance.  They’ll also refer female patients to the gynecologic clinic, if necessary, after they’ve met with these patients.
  • ​​Do NOT overbook Proctology Clinic.  If there is no availability, in the timeframe you need, then send the patient to the General Surgery clinic.
  • Patients with suspected ectopic pregnancy should follow up in GYN Surgery clinic. ​
​​Transfers
  • ​​Transfer formsMUST be completed on all transfer patients regardless of the service requesting the transfer.You’ll find the Transfer Form after you’ve selected “Transfer to Another Facility” on the Disposition Tab >> TRANSFER/EMTALA Forms >> complete the form – especially the ACCEPTING HOSPITALand ACCEPTING ATTENDING PHYSICIAN (not resident)! Then save, print, and give the form to the sending RN.  
​​Radiology
  • For radiology studies select an indication AND include a brief comment on the reason for exam
  • When ordering PLAIN X-ray imaging place a patient transport request in EPIC. On the main tracking board select the patient, click on “patient transport”, select “EL Radiology” as the location and priority “high”.  
Admissions​​
  • If you change the admitting service or level of care, you need to (1) change the admission service order in EPIC AND (2) also call Admitting
  • The ED attending makes the final admission decision, please check with them before admitting.
  • Any patient with a traumatic injury MUST be admitted to a surgical service. If they need telemetry or have complex medical diagnoses, the SICU fellow or attending should be consulted for SICU or surgical step down bed assignment.
Epic Quirks 
  • ​​Please use the “quick lists” to order medications. These are set up to have appropriate dosing, administration and titration instructions for the ED. In addition the IV push doses of relevant medications have now been added to this list
  • Click the provider in button and indicate the time you first saw the patient for every patient you see (if it has not already been done).
  • Uses the physical exam checkboxes in EPIC to document guaiac results.​
Misc

  • ​​Vaginal ultrasound probe cleaning (Trophon)/use monitoring: Name-sticker placed in the black folderwhen we use the pelvic ultrasound probe.  This must be done every time by either the ED provider, chaperoning PCA, or the Gyn consultant.
  • Ultrasounds: Please clean the ultrasounds and plug them in after use. Please order, save images, and read all ultrasounds performed in the ED.
  • We have Naloxone kits available for free distribution to at risk patients. Most of the attending physicians have completed the training to dispense the kits. Please consider this for your patients and ask the attendings when appropriate.
​Trauma/Cardiac
  • Apply a patient label or baxter label to the EMS notification sheet when applicable. Continue to place these sheets in the bin by the phones. ​
  • ​Continue to save all ultrasounds, especially all FAST exams done during trauma to Q-path. These should be linked to ​​the patient in Q-path, interpreted by the resident and signed by the attending. 
Sepsis
  • ​​​P​lease help us meet sepsis treatment criteria. We are missing sepsis marker primarily because of these four things: 
    • Blood cultures not marked as collected prior to antibiotic being marked as given – REMIND YOUR RN;
    • Time to fluid and antibiotic administration – We have 3 hours from arrival;
    • Failure to repeat elevated lactate by 6 hours;
    • Failure to write a sepsis reassessment note after fluids are given.

Colleen and Moira

​FULL BLOCK 4 UPDATE  Elmhurst Updates SEPTEMBER 2018

2016 EHC ANTIBIOGRAM 2016 EHC Antibiogram
The most recent EHC Traumatic spine and brain injury protocols. Both can be found permanently linked under the cardiac/trauma tab

Outpatient MRI orders

Do not put in MR orders for outpatient follow ups.  The neurology/NS consultant should place the outpatient MR order themselves.  This ensures that it’s their responsibility to review the result and contact the patient appropriately.

 

Thanks,

Phil

 

Phillip G. Fairweather, MD, FACEP

Inter-Hospital Transfers to Mt.Sinai

In general, transfers are initiated by the consulting service with the accepting physician being provided by that service.

Patients should in general be admitted to an open bed, but can on occasion be transferred to the ED.

1-800-To-Sinai

1-800-867-4624

If there are any significant issues, can be discussed with Dr.Abe Warshaw

Sepsis Care Update

There are a handful of issues we need to improve on with regards to our sepsis care and documentation.

1. Make sure all patients with severe sepsis and/or septic shock that you enroll receive a 30cc/kg IV fluid challenge. This is not always 2 liters. Go by estimated actual body weight. If for whatever reason, you don’t want to give that amount – ESRD, CHF (although withholding this fluid challenge is probably not smart if they are truly severe sepsis) – specify on the chart/data sheet why you are withholding fluids

2. Blood cultures need to be ordered and drawn before antibiotics are given.
 
3. DNR/DNI patients still need their MRN’s submitted the usual way. NYS is collecting demographic data on them too. You don’t have to fill anything out. Just write DNR on the data sheet and scan it into HMED
We’re all providing good sepsis care already, we might as well get credit for it.
RP