November 30, 2011

St.Vincent Seton Specialty: First Hospital in Indianapolis
to Use New Technology to Eliminate Radiation and Reduce Costs

INDIANAPOLIS – St.Vincent Seton Specialty Hospital, a long-term acute care facility, is the first in Indianapolis and second in the state to use a new technology to locate the placement of a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC). The newly FDA-approved device, Sapiens TCS by Bard Access Systems, provides real-time PICC catheter tip location information without using an X-ray; thus eliminating radiation and reducing patient costs.

A PICC line is a long, slender and flexible tube that is inserted into a peripheral vein, typically in the upper arm. Once placed in the arm, the PICC line advances until the catheter tip enters into a large vein in the chest near the heart to obtain intravenous access. The use of a PICC line ranges from providing prolonged treatments, pain medicine, and nutrition to chemotherapy.

“We are now able to eliminate the X-ray, thus reducing extra radiation and costs to the patient, and are able to insert a PICC line faster,” said Lynn Dokes, RN, procedure nurse at St.Vincent Seton Specialty Hospital. “Our hospital serves the needs of medically-complex patients, and any step we can take to bring them treatment faster and more accurately is always ideal.”

Previously, for a clinician to appropriately place a PICC line in a patient, an X-ray was needed for guidance. Now, by using the Sapiens TCS, clinicians receive real-time PICC catheter tip location information guided by the patient’s cardiac electrical activity seen on the screen of an electrocardiogram (EKG). By eliminating the X-ray, a patient is not being exposed to 10 millirems (the unit used to measure the effect of radiation on a human body) which is equivalent to being exposed to the sun in a car for two hours. The system is faster and allows more accurate placement, giving a more reliable method to place the line and shortening the line placement procedure.

The long-term acute care hospital invested in state-of-the-art technology for their facilities in both Indianapolis and Lafayette.

St.Vincent Seton Specialty Hospital is a premier long-term acute care hospital dedicated to improving the quality of life for patients in their journey back to a good health condition. Seton offers specialized treatment programs and aggressive clinical and therapeutic intervention on a 24/7 basis. The faith-based hospital provides care for patients often critically ill who require more specialized treatment programs and intensive nursing intervention.

Services offered range from ventilator management, complex infusion therapy, intensive respiratory therapy, complex wound care and infusion therapy. These types of services are offered for patients who are recovering from complicated strokes, renal failure, multi-system failure, pulmonary/medical rehabilitation, complex wounds and surgery and more.

St.Vincent Seton Specialty Hospital has been accredited by The Joint Commission, the nation’s premier healthcare accreditation entity, and has an overall patient satisfaction percentile ranking in the 99th percentile.

For more information contact:
Jen Dial
St.Vincent Health
Public Relations
(317) 583-4031
jkdial@stvincent.org