PIV
Power Hour Breakout
Brian Pendleton, RN, MSN
Nurse Administrator
Intermountain Healthcare
We believe our role as caregivers is to maintain dignity, compassion, and humanity in how we deliver health and care in fulfilling our medical duties. In evaluating ways to better deliver quality care at the most appropriate cost, we identified blood draws as an opportunity for innovation. While seemingly simple, the use of a needle to draw blood introduces anxiety and pain for patients, unnecessary risk for practitioners, and waste for the health system.
Our focus on patient care and experience improvement is one that we hope can be replicated across other systems. In this case, we feel strongly that our ongoing program has proven that a new, more humane blood collection process that removes the needle is adaptable to different inpatient and facility needs. It can be implemented across multiple facilities and care settings with only slight variations in workflow. The training for the procedure was straightforward, and after initial implementation each unit/department was able to keep up with training through team leads and educators to adapt to staff turnover.