Perioperative Care of Patients with Cardiac Implantable Electronic Devices: A DNP Project

Abstract

The current process for delivering perioperative care for patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices lacks standardization and creates the potential for unexecuted safety measures. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to assess anesthesia providers’ perceptions of an educational handout summarizing current evidence-based practices as a tool to improve perioperative cardiac implantable electronic device management and patient safety. This project utilized a plan-do-study-act cycle conducted over a two-week period with a sample of 10 CRNAs working in the main operating room at the partnering organization. Data from these participants were gathered using pre- and post- intervention Qualtrics surveys and analyzed using Excel. After implementation of the handout, participants reported being more comfortable with professional guidelines regarding cardiac implantable electronic device management, managing high-risk electromagnetic interference cases, and spending less time searching for cardiac implantable electronic device management resources. The positive shift in CRNAs’ perceived comfort caring for this population after the implementation period shows a potential utility for this educational handout. A significant limitation to this project was the differing number of pre- and post- survey responses. In the future, this project may be repeated with a larger sample size to obtain more conclusive results regarding CRNA perceptions of the efficacy of this tool.