Clinical Best Practice Programs

New Cardiac Vital Sign

Measure, monitor and treat. Enhance your clinical practice and optimize patient care virtually anywhere non-invasive and invasive technologies are used. ED, ICU, OB, Pediatrics, Telemetry, PACU, Pre-hospital, Cathlabs, Cardiac Care, MICU and SICU all benefit from understanding and using stroke volume measurement as a tool for more proactive care.

Program Objective
Develop the knowledge base of practicing clinicians to recognize and successfully manage patients with normal and abnormal hemodynamics.

Participant Learning Objectives
At the completion of this course, the participant will be able to:

  1. Discuss the strengths and limitations of technologies for measuring hemodynamics
  2. Discuss the implications of Doppler technology on patient safety
  3. Discuss the implications of using Doppler technology on nursing learning time
  4. Describe the economic implications of using new hemodynamic monitoring, e.g.
       a. How doppler technology can be used to reduce LOS and generate revenue
       b. Reduction in the time it takes to educate nurses and physicians with new technology
  5. Discuss how use of stroke volume /index can be used to easily titrate fluid therapy
  6. Describe how use of Doppler technology reduces nursing and physician education time

Learning Rooms
The learner enters rooms in each clinical area. Each room has a different problem to solve. As the learner enters a room, they must act as they would in real life. The room is interactive, including the patient. If the learner wants information, they must seek the information. As in real life, no information is given without their effort. The learner must make an assessment and if treatment is indicated, administer that treatment. Treatments can be accessed in real life format, e.g. medication carts. Depending on the treatment selected, the patient may get better. Incorrect answers are identified for the learner and suggestions are made to help learning. The learner must solve the problem before being allowed to advance. However, the learner can leave the room if they want and complete the same room at a later time.

There are 8 learning rooms in each clinical area; each designed to teach specific aspects of identifying and treating hemodynamics. The key teaching points in each room are:

  1. Identification of a patient who is normal (1 room where patient is normal)
  2. Identification and treatment of a patient who requires fluid therapy (1 room)
  3. Identification and treatment of a patient who requires inotropic therapy (1 room)
  4. Identification and treatment of patient who requires vasopressor therapy (1 room)
  5. Identification and treatment of patient who requires preload reduction (1 room)
  6. Identification and treatment of patient who requires afterload reduction (1 room)
  7. Identification and treatment of patient who requires removal of vasopressor therapy
    (1 room)
  8. Identification and treatment of patient who requires treatment of septic shock (1 room)


Testing Rooms
In the evaluation section, the hospital room is identical to the learning rooms. However, in these rooms, once the learner has selected a response, no guidelines are given whether the answer is correct or not. The learner chooses to exit the room at any time. Success will be identified by if the learner has completed all the required steps to ensure the patient was adequately treated.
The testing cases involve four of the most important aspects of hemodynamic recognition and treatment:

  1. Identification and treatment of patient who requires inotropic therapy (1 room)
  2. Identification and treatment of patient who requires fluid therapy (1 room)
  3. Identification and treatment of patient who requires vasopressor therapy (1 room)
  4. Identification and treatment of patient who requires removal of therapy (1 room)