The Intensive Care Foundation and AVATAR are pleased to present our second collaborative seminar on 26 March 2018 Glass Viewing room at Queensland Cricketers' Club 411 Vulture Street, The Gabba, Woollongabba Intensive care patients are cared for by a multi-disciplinary team, each of whom have distinct and important contributions to the complex journey, taking the patient from critically ill through to discharge.
Along this journey, patients will have multiple vascular a...

Assessing vascular access in Latin America.  The VASCULAR (Vascular AccesS Catheter Use in Latin AmeRica) study is a multinational cross-sectional study designed to assess and compare the prevalence of PIVC use in Latin American hospitals, to benchmark quality care practices, and to determine the proportion of complications leading to PIVC failure.

https://www.avatargroup.org.au/vascular-study.html

NURSES and midwives play a central role in the care and maintenance of central lines. But despite all efforts, sometimes central-line associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) do occur. These infections may be devastating for patients in terms of morbidity and mortality. For example, in the United States, CLABSIs result in thousands of deaths each year and cost health care systems billions of dollars (CDC, 2016). Read more: http://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wh1.thewebc...

Vascular Access Call for Papers! Submission deadline 1 February 2018. Did you know, the Australian Vascular Access Society has its own peer-reviewed online journal, Vascular Access? http://avas.org.au/avas-journal/ The electronic journal is published twice a year in April and October, and we warmly welcome research findings, clinical papers, case studies, reports, review articles, letters and product appraisals pertaining to this specialty. Video submissions are also welcomed. Submis...

The Australian Vascular Access Society (AVAS) is an association of healthcare professionals founded to promote the vascular access specialty. Our multidisciplinary membership strives to advance vascular access research, promotes professional and public education to shape practice and enhance patient outcomes, and partners with industry to develop evidence-based innovations in vascular access. The electronic journal Vascular Access is the official publication of AVAS, and provi...

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2018 to all AVATAR staff, students, friends and partners around the world! We take this time to thank you for your commitment to making vascular access complications history. And, we look forward to working with you in 2018 to continue to improve consumer experiences and clinical outcomes of vascular access and infusion therapy. Our congratulations to the following who will receive a certificate and support to present their vascular access findings a...

Based on an observational study of peripheral intravenous catheter outcomes in adult hospitalised patients a multivariable analysis of peripheral intravenous catheter failure, Journal of Hospital Medicine (published online October 2017). Marsh, N., Webster, J., Larsen, E., Cooke, M., Mihala, G. & Rickard C.M. Nurses can expect to care for patients with a peripheral intravenous catheter (PIV) on a daily basis. Of significant concern however is that up to 69% of PIV may fail...

Ullman AJ, Kleidon T, Cooke M, Rickard CM. Substantial harm associated with failure of chronic paediatric central venous access devices. BMJ Case Reports. 2017. Central venous access devices (CVADs) are essential to modern paediatric healthcare, however device complications and failures remain high. This case study illustrates the complex and harmful experience of a young child with CVAD dependency and failure due to 'short gut syndrome' (significant bowel resection as a result...

REDUcing the burden of dialysis Catheter ComplicaTIOns: a National approach (REDUCCTION study) This national NHMRC funded study is being led by The George Institute for Global Health to explore the implementation of a new intervention suite for insertion and management of central dialysis catheters. The study commenced in 2016 and involves 4 phases
1. Building electronic data capture systems
2. Baseline data collection using newly developed system across several platforms
3. Interv...