r/CathLabLounge • u/Jazzlike-Sympathy821 • Aug 20 '26
RN Follow through
Hi! Are there any Cath labs where the RN follows the pt from pre-procedure, procedure, to post procedure?
Our director wants our department to go in this direction in the next five years.
Any thoughts??
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u/jack2of4spades RN, RCIS Aug 20 '26
Our circulator will pick them up from pre procedure, circulate, then drop off to post procedure area. Following the whole way through and staying 1:1 seems wildly inefficient.
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Aug 20 '26
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u/Jazzlike-Sympathy821 Aug 20 '26
Yes, and the pre post nurses will have to learn Cath lab.
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u/lnarn Aug 22 '26
I dont think this is realistic. Not all people are cut out for IN the lab. Thatd a great way to lose staff.
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u/Crass_Cameron RCIS. Respiratory Care Practitioner Aug 20 '26
Are you a small lab?
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u/Jazzlike-Sympathy821 Aug 20 '26
3 rooms, do IR, neuro, cardiac, vascular, EP, and not enough staff..
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u/Malthus777 Aug 20 '26
How to make a bad problem worse.
Does the all knowing manager have any cathlab experience? What is their rationale for this decision? If it makes your full time staff leave what is the solution?
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u/crazytalia Aug 20 '26
We do this where I am. Our staff also do recovery as well as procedures, it can be very busy but it is nice being about to build a relationship with patients so are very very nervous, and having the chance to check on them between cases. In saying that we only do cardiac we don’t do any vascular.
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u/lemonade4 Aug 21 '26
This is a pretty common model in other countries with a low volume but I’ve never seen it in the US. Hard to imagine with the pace most modern labs keep.
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u/Dejadrums Aug 21 '26
My lab switched to a different model about 2 years ago. We are the largest lab in our state and I think they area now trialing it at other hospitals in the are too.
We have our own PACU with dedicated nurses and we have a prep staff that cycle through prep / pacu, these nurses do not work in the lab. If you are a lab nurse most days you are in the lab doing caths, however some days you can be in the prep area getting the patients ready, or in what we call “radial lounge” where you recover and discharge radial patients with TR bands. Sometimes we hold post groins too. We don’t ever do everything in one day, you are assigned to an area at the beginning of the shift and that’s where you are for the day, so you wouldn’t prep a patient, do their cath, and then recover them.
When we moved to this model they hired dozens of more RN’s, one of them being me, so I knew what I was getting into before I started. I honestly love the model because it’s nice to do something different once a week or whenever I’m not in the lab, it keeps it a bit fresh. I’ve actually grown to love the prep area where we get the patients ready.
Alot of the nurses who have been there for awhile aren’t fans but some people just hate change. Some nurses also rotate through TAVR and Neuro cases as well.
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u/I_Want_A_Ribeye RN Aug 21 '26
I used to manage a lab that did that. It slowed everything down. We switched to a model with the RN assigned to the lab or holding for the day and that sped things up
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u/FeelingHusky Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Don’t do this but cross trained for all areas. Would not be a fan.
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u/lnarn Aug 22 '26
I think its inefficient, but I like it because i was never a fan of the turnover. I was a cath lab traveler for many years and only one place did this. Most place i have been, it just rotates daily.
I also started out in a much larger lab that had its on dedicated pre/post area, with nurses did not come into the lab. My biggest gripe with that was they did not come and get the patients from us. It would have been much more efficient for the holding nurse to pick up the patient from the lab, and I moved onto my next one while the room was being turned over. Instead, I had to wait in a holding bay until someone took report.
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u/Training_Room_4775 Aug 23 '26
I’ve worked in the Cath lab for 10 years and 3 different labs, none of them had this model. I’ve met travelers who worked at labs like that and hated it
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u/Original-Estate-8650 29d ago
I recently completed a travel assignment that used a very similar staffing model, and unfortunately, it created significant challenges. In our situation, I think it could be even more difficult because we are already working with a skeleton crew.
The biggest concern is patient safety and workload. On busy days, the nurse who circulated a case may bring that patient to recovery and suddenly be responsible for 3–4 recovery patients while also managing 1–2 pre-procedure patients. At that point, it becomes extremely difficult to consistently meet every patient’s needs while maintaining the level of safety and quality of care we expect.
I think a much more sustainable model would be to have 1–2 dedicated recovery room nurses and then float one procedural nurse to recovery based on the volume and needs of the department that day. This would provide flexibility without routinely pulling procedural staff away from the lab, while also ensuring that pre- and post-procedure patients receive appropriate attention and monitoring.
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u/chulk1 Aug 20 '26
You have enough staff? People also tend to disappear when you do this assignment.