Preprocedure care for outpatients in the cardiac catheterization lab in an acute care hospital in central Mississippi: a best practice implementation project.

Objectives: The objective of this implementation project was to improve the cardiac catheterization lab multidisciplinary team's compliance with best practices regarding preprocedural care.

Introduction: The cardiac catheterization lab performs numerous diagnostic and interventional outpatient procedures. Preprocedural care is a crucial step in preparing patients and clinical staff.

Methods: The JBI Evidence Implementation framework was used for this project. The baseline audit for the project included a review of 30 electronic health records for best practice adherence. The Getting Research into Practice tool guided leadership to increase awareness and compliance to evidence-based practice. A follow-up audit of 30 electronic health records followed implementation of strategies.

Results: Baseline audit data suggested all best practices combined were only followed at 79%, and revealed the need for improvement in preprocedural phone calls to patients and documentation related to patient education regarding the procedure and expectations for procedure recovery. Four barriers were identified and multiple strategies were implemented in an attempt to improve compliance with evidence-based practices. Follow-up audits showed an overall improvement to 81% after project implementation.

Conclusions: The project showed improvements with best practices for preprocedural care in the outpatient setting. However, more work remains to obtain sustainability of best practices, including preprocedural assessment undertaken prior to the cardiac catheterization procedure, information provided to the patient prior to the cardiac catheterization procedure explaining the test and expected recovery, and patients receiving a phone call prior to the procedure for reminders of procedural details.