Dear Community,
👻 Happy Halloween! 👻
Wishing you and your family a safe and fun weekend.
Thank you all for another successful virtual ACTION meeting on September 30th! We had over 100+ registered participants & conducted 4 breakout sessions (data & reports, QI projects, education & novel data/technology). The operations and data teams are working through the feedback received from the breakout sessions. On the heels of our last virtual meeting, we are excited to announce our first in-person meeting will be a leadership meeting at ISHLT in April 2022 in Boston. A “Save the Date” will be coming soon to our ACTION leaders. Stay tuned!
Regards,
Is More Better? Pediatric HF Medication Titration & Lessons Learned from Adult HF Experts
Thursday, December 12, 2021
4:00 PM Eastern
Featured Presentations
Current state of pediatric HF therapies
Deip Nandi, MD
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Joseph Spinner, MD
Texas Children’s Hospital
Practical steps and strategies for initiating GDMT in the hospitalized patient with decompensated HF
Michelle Kittleson, MD
Cedars -Sinai
Practical steps and strategies for optimization of GDMT in the ambulatory HF patient
Andrew Sauer, MD
University of Kansas Medical Center
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Please submit any questions that you would like for our presenters to discuss on the registration page.
Please register by December 9th. Registration is free and open to anyone interested in participating. To join us, click the link below:
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For more information or upcoming topics visit our Learning Session page.
New Centers
Omaha Children's
Omaha, NE
- Jean Ballweg, MD
- Alyss Burgert, RN
- Kelly Erickson, MPH
- Sarah Hays, RN
- Amy Kenkel, APRN
- Adam Putschoegl, DO
St. Christopher’s
Hospital for Children (Drexel)
Philadelphia, PA
- Amir Toib, MD
- Ajit Mammen, ICU Chief
- Michaela McCrudden, MSPAS, PA-C
- Erika Milk, RN
Check it out!
The first Leaders in ACTION cohort class kicked off on October 26th!
Two cohorts will be going through this first rotation of training. We are excited to learn from O’Neil and Associates and build leadership skills.
The program was developed because ACTION leaders recognized that many clinical members often assume leadership in daily responsibilities; these roles require knowledge of management and leadership practices which are not traditionally part of clinical training. Leaders in ACTION brings together a group of clinical members to share experiences and apply learnings to drive change in clinical settings.
This program is in honor of Patti Massicotte. A big thank you to Patti and all she did for the field. And thank you, Berlin Heart, for funding this novel program!
Stay tuned as we are hoping to open additional cohorts soon!
Newly Updated: Heart Failure Communication Checklist
The Heart Failure Communication Checklist has been updated to include two sections: one for daily patient updates and the other for ongoing patient information.
This is also available in the Provider ACTION Library on MyActionEducation.org
New Protocol: SynCardia TAH-t Management
The Harmonization Committee has released a new protocol for ACTION clinicians. The “SynCardia (TAH-t) Guidelines” document is now available on the Provider > ACTION Library > 2 Resources > Protocols tab on MyActionEducation.org! It is also available on Basecamp.
Please email Lauren Smyth with any feedback or suggested edits for this document.
Quality Improvement Updates
New Monthly VAD Measures Survey
We have instituted a new monthly REDCap survey for self-auditing of VAD implants. The survey also contains a few questions about our quality improvement measures. This was launched on September 8th and was sent to PI’s and VAD Coordinators at ACTION centers. Keep an eye out for the November survey coming soon! Just like everything we do, this will be a PDSA and we would love feedback.
De-Escalation (Discharge) Project
The De-Escalation/Discharge Committee Leaders are continuing discussions around how to discharge more patients and expanding scope to include site specific work on transplant criteria and getting home before transplant. We have been making edits to the ACTION flight plan tool and are aiming to test it at the next committee meeting! New data collection for this project will also roll out with the new flight plan (we are making the data entry as minimal as possible). More details for the project focus, revised flight plan, and data entry will be discussed in our upcoming committee meeting on Nov. 3rd. Please continue to test the Flight Plan and Journey Map. This project is open to all sites in ACTION. If you would like to participate in the new project scope, please email us to let us know!
Stroke Project
The next discussion meeting will be held on November 4th. The new stroke REDCap and the case presentation PPT template have been finalized. We are reaching out to sites that have submitted stroke events to schedule them for upcoming clinical discussion meetings. By reviewing each individual stroke event we hope to reduce stroke rates even further for VAD patients. Please continue joining us for our stroke meetings the first Thursday of each month from 4:30–5:30pm EST. Please email us with any questions!
Medication Titration Project
The project focus around optimizing and uptitrating medicines for heart failure patients is underway. Baseline data collection ends on October 31st. The Meds Titration committee will use this baseline data to inform and create an ACTION recommended protocol.
Heart Failure Project
Teams continue to test the two interventions: a communication checklist and a discharge plan. We are aiming to reduce length of stay for heart failure patients admitted to the hospital, as well as decrease readmissions. The next meeting will be on November 30th. Please continue to enter data into the enrollment REDCap for all heart failure patients, not only patients that have used the interventions. Please see the NEW Heart Failure Data Entry infographic to know when and where to enter data for this project.
Registry Database
Updates
PowerBI
The new ACTION PowerBI environment is fully established with network wide and site specific reports. To access the environment, use the following link and login with your ACTION credentials:
https://app.powerbi.com/home?ctid=0af35862-78c9-45dd-9f55-70c76e0d813f
Email Kyle with any questions or issues logging in.
Simplified Clinical
We have 699 VAD patients enrolled in the Simplified Clinical database as of October 1, 2021. Thank you for all your efforts!
Patient Reported Outcomes
Nineteen ACTION teams are participating in Patient Reported Outcomes via the Tonic platform! E-Consent and PRO enrollment for VAD patients are now active.
Important note for participating teams: Maryna Shykova has transitioned her role at Tonic to Andrew Brytan. If you need any technical support from Tonic or need to stop patient surveys for any reason, please email Andrew directly.
DMD
Twenty-five teams are entering data and 20 patients have been enrolled for DMD Data Entry. We also have two completed 6-month follow-up forms for the enrolled patients. If you need access to enter data please email us.
CardioMEMS
CardioMEMS data entry is live and we have three patients enrolled in the project! We also have one submission for the 6-month follow-up form for the enrolled patients. If you need access to enter data please email us.
Fontan Referral Tracking Project
We have 80 patients enrolled in the Fontan Referral tracking project! We also have 68 completed 30-day follow-up forms for the enrolled patients. For sites that have been entering this data, we have 12 incomplete 30-day follow-up records. Please check your form completion status and submit these forms at your earliest convenience. If you are interested in entering data for this project please email us.
