Recapping the "Down East"

POC Meeting and Vendor Fair!

Welcome

Paula Stafford, Pitt County Memorial Hospital Point of Care Coordinator, opened the meeting with a warm welcome “Down East” to the fall, October 22, 2007 North Carolina POC Network meeting and vendor fair.  George Williams, Laboratory Manager, also shared a few words of welcome. 

“Getting to the Heart of the Matter”
 

Linda K. Ward, RN, BSN Clinical Quality Initiatives Specialist for Dade Behring, Inc. gave a very informative presentation on “Getting to the Heart of the Matter, 2007 NACB Cardiac Biomarker and Cardiac POC Guidelines.” 

She covered the following objectives:

• Difference between STEMI and NSTEMI

• Identification of preferred cardiac biomarker for cardiac necrosis

• Identification of decision-making point for diagnosing probable cardiac necrosis

• Understanding importance of risk stratification

• Role of laboratory in selection of POC instruments

Everyone really enjoyed Linda Ward’s presentation and definitely gained or strengthened their knowledge of cardiac biomarkers.

Ice Breaker

The group had a good time playing the game –“Hospital’s City & Region.”  Ice breakers are always a great way for us to get to know our peers in the NC POC Network.

Business Meeting

• Debra Norkett, the Point of Care Coordinator from Northeast Medical Center and our NC POC Network President, led the business portion our meeting.  Deb gave special thanks to Paula Stafford for all of her hard work.  As always, our meetings can only be made possible through the generous support of our vendors.  Thank you!

• Deb Norkett presented the Treasurer’s Report that Kim Ballister and Sheila Cruthis, POCCs for Moses Cone Memorial Hospital, provided to her.  We were reminded that our dues are $10 per year.

• Deb Norkett also discussed the NC Network Member List and new copies were handed out to all members.  If you have any updates to your information, please complete a Database update form. 

• Kelly Guarnaccia, Abbott Diabetes Care, had a terrific suggestion to boost our membership.  She suggested a flyer be put together that promotes our group—education, peer networking, new vendor information. 

• We have a lot of members, but the vendors are meeting people everyday in NC that do not have any knowledge of the NC POC Network.  They can help us get the word out by distributing the flyers.

• All officer nominees in attendance introduced themselves and talked for a few moments about their opportunity to be an officer for our group.  Elections were held.

Upcoming Meetings

• The spring meeting will be hosted by Carolinas Medical Center in
  Charlotte, NC in May. 

• The fall 2008 meeting will be hosted by Moses Cone Memorial
  Hospital in Greensboro, NC. 

Deb Norkett asked for members to consider hosting a future meeting.

Paula Stafford voiced some very valid concerns about being a single POC at an institution and trying to plan a NC Network meeting.  It can seem a bit overwhelming.  The group addressed her concerns and presented the following suggestions to future hosts:     

• All committee members are willing to provide help, answer questions, solve issues that arise, and provide moral support. 

• We have a very good NC Network POC planning guide available for your use.  It takes you step by step through the process.

• Hosts can receive help with such items as name tags, attendance certificates, speaker suggestions, manning the registration table, meeting set-up, ect.

• Vendors are always willing to do the leg work to provide speakers.

• www.pointofcare.net has lots of valuable information for you to use and thus ideas for meeting topics.

• Lastly, anytime anyone offers to help, please take them up on their offer.  Some hosts in the past have preferred to handle all of the details themselves, but the committee is more than willing to tackle the tasks associated with these meetings as a team.  We all want to be involved.

Vendor Fair

Thank you to all the vendors who participated in our Vendor Fair.  All of the information that was shared was very much appreciated. 

2008 Officers

The results of the officer elections were announced:

President:

• Sherry Gant

Vice President:

• Joyce Bowers

Secretary:

• Patti Hawkins

Treasurer:

• Kim Ballister/Sheila Cruthis

“Warfarin Monitoring: Best Practices and Entering a New Frontier”
 

Lisa Montes, BS, MLT (ASCP) Manager of Technical Solutions and Support Center for ITC gave a most educational presentation on “Warfarin Monitoring: Best Practices and Entering a New Frontier.”  She discussed the following objectives:

• History of coagulation

• Basic coagulation

• POC PT/INR methodology

• Regulatory standards

• The New Frontier

The group really benefited from the education they were given on Warfarin Monitoring.  Lisa Montes was an excellent speaker.

Round Table Discussion
 

As always, our round table discussions were extremely informative.  Many of the members posted questions /concerns out to the group.  The group shared valuable feed-back in return, based on their own experiences and offered solutions to many of the questions presented.  Round tables are constantly one of the most beneficial sessions at our meeting.  We can learn a lot from our peers.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, our Fall NC POC Network meeting was a huge success! 

• All of the members received a very nice calculator with the NC Point of Care Network logo on it. 

• We appreciated the food, the give-aways, the vendor fair information, and the speakers. 

• Thank you again to all of the vendors whose generous support was able to make this meeting possible. 

• Also, thank you again to Paula Stafford for all of her hard work.  We truly appreciated the educational presentations that she arranged for us.  I know that everyone was able to gain some important information to increase their knowledge of Point of Care testing. 

It was a terrific day!  Thanks Paula!

Sherry Gant,
President for the NC Point of Care Network
Point of Care Coordinator for Gaston Memorial Hospital

Back to top