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January 2022
Dear Community, We hope you are all having a safe and healthy start to the new year! We are very excited to share that we submitted 9 ACTION abstracts to ISHLT, and all 9 abstracts were accepted! Details below and congratulations to the many authors and co-authors. We are also pleased to roll-out a new focus for our Discharge & De-Escalation project in which we will collect and review listing criteria at the time of transplant listing for VAD patients. We are also hopeful that we will have our first in-person meeting at ISHLT in April – stay tuned! Regards, 
Promoting Myocardial Recovery for Children on VADs |
Upcoming EventsFebruary 10, 2021 April 26, 2022 – SAVE THE DATE! 
April 26–30, 2022 |
New Centers
Nemours Children's Hospital
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Check it out!
Congratulations to all our ISHLT 2022 Accepted Lead Authors!
We are excited to share that all 9 of the ACTION Lead Authors who submitted abstracts were accepted to the 2022 ISHLT!
More details, including Abstract titles and conference presentation times, coming soon!
HVAD™ System vs. HeartMate 3™ LVAD
One Page Summary (OPS)
Check out our new HVAD™ System vs. HeartMate 3™ LVAD One Page Summary (OPS). We designed this OPS guide to give providers a brief summary of the differences between the VAD devices and their function.
All other OPS guides, including the Berlin Heart EXCOR® and HeartMate 3™ LVAD, are available to download on MyActionEducation.org.
Impella® Provider Education
Clinical Providers: You can now access our Impella® two-part training decks and test your knowledge with the Impella® quiz. Make sure to check out the Extra Credit tab for additional resources. Visit MyACTIONEducation.org and click on Providers>Impella to get started.
Please email us if you are a clinician and do not have access to the “Providers” tab.
VAD Nutrition Protocol
The Harmonization Committee has released a new protocol for ACTION clinicians. Download and review the new ACTION VAD Nutrition Protocol document.
This protocol, along with others, is located on MyActionEducation.org under Providers > ACTION Library > 2 Resources > Protocols and on Basecamp.
Please email Lauren Smyth with any feedback or suggested edits.
Quality Improvement Updates
De-Escalation (Discharge) Project
The De-Escalation/Discharge Committee Leaders presented the new project focus at the January 27th Leadership Committee meeting. For over a year, we have focused on improving discharge rates for VAD patients. We found that only about 50% of pediatric patients with CF-VADs are discharged from the hospital. We also found that 1/3 of VAD patients undergo transplant prior to discharge from the hospital. The scope of our project has now expanded to better understand factors influencing transplant listing, specifically de-escalation of care. Our eventual goal is to establish guidance on optimal timing for transplant for various populations to improve post-transplant outcomes.
Sites that sign up to participate in this project will use the newly revised ACTION Flight Plan tool & patient/caregiver journey maps. There is minimal data collection required for this project, but the data entry is critical to this project. Please only sign up to participate if you are sure you can meet the data entry requirement.
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 February 3rd. 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 ended in October and intervention planning will begin early 2022. The Meds Titration committee will use the baseline data and pilot testing 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 February 22nd. 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
Simplified Clinical data as of 1/3/22
Total # VAD Patients Enrolled
800
DMD
Initial Enrollment:
60
6-mo follow-up completed:
2
CardioMEMs
Initial Enrollment:
2
6-mo follow-up completed:
1
Fontan
Initial Enrollment:
79
30-day follow-up completed:
70
Open Positions in ACTION Centers
Ochsner Hospital for Children
New Orleans, LA
Looking for: Pediatric Heart Failure/Heart Transplant Cardiologist
Responsibilities: Ochsner Hospital for Children is recruiting a pediatric heart failure/heart transplant cardiologist to join our growing program. This position includes patients with cardiomyopathies, heart failure, transplant, congenital heart disease, and ventricular assist devices. Candidates will join two heart failure/heart transplant cardiologists in the only pediatric heart transplant center in Louisiana. Includes inpatient patient care, outpatient clinic, and program development. We have 3 congenital heart surgeons and dedicated pCICU. The physician will educate Tulane-Ochsner pediatric residents and our University of Queensland medical students.To Apply: To learn more and apply, see the full job posting.
Email Contact: Thomas Young, MD, Section Head of Pediatric Cardiology
