WHAT’S INSIDE?

SPRING 2016

Canadian Respiratory Conference

Canadian Cardiovascular Congress

New Bylaws

Save Lives: Clean Your Hands

Continuing Education

World COPD Day

CACPT Continuing Professional

Program

Articles

PFT Symposium 2015 recap

PFT Symposium 2016

CACPT Newsletter

facebook.com/cacpt.ca

Canadian Respiratory Conference 2016 April 14-16, 2016 – Halifax, Nova Scotia http://crc.lung.ca/

The Canadian Respiratory Conference (CRC) is the premier national educational and sci-entific meeting for the respiratory commu-nity in Canada. The annual conference offers a broad scientific program developed by clinicians, multidisciplinary healthcare professionals, scientists and educators in our community who have developed an excellent reputation in the field of respira-tory medicine, locally and internationally. The program promotes discussion of the

most significant developments in respiratory health. The CRC is a joint initiative of the Canadian Thoracic Society, the Canadian Respiratory Health Professionals, and the Canadian Lung Association.

2016 Canadian Cardiovascular Congress October 22-25, 2016 – Montreal, Quebec http://www.cardiocongress.org/ Year after year, CCC continues to grow by bringing returning and new dele-gates to different locations across the country. The importance of the CCC is always expressed by attendees after the event: It’s the most essential net-working event of the year and the best opportunity to stay up-to-date on the latest Canadian research, policy and practice in the field, making it one of Canada’s longest running medical meetings for a reason.

New Bylaws

Please be aware that the new CACPT Bylaws is accessible online and will require a username and password. Please contact

one of our board members for details.

SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands 5 May 2016

Safe Surgical Care SAVES LIVES: Clean Your Hands – Prioritizing improvement of hand hygiene practices in all surgical services The problem Preventing infections and reducing an avoidable burden on health systems is still critical around the world today and is part of making sure every health-care setting is safe for treating every single patient. Surgical patients are at risk of health care-associated infections (HAI), in particular surgical site infections (SSI) and device-associated infections (e.g. catheter-associated urinary tract infection). SSIs are a burden on every health-care facility as featured in this WHO report from 2011.

How the SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands campaign will support a solution Improving hand hygiene practices in all surgical services through the continu-um of care, from surgical wards to operating theatres, to outpatient surgical services, is the primary focus of this year’s 5 May campaign. Useful products available from WHO this year will include:

a 5 May 2016 slogan, image and hashtag to let everyone join in spread-ing consistent messages around the world;

a new infographic image featuring messages on surgical site infections and their prevention;

some educational posters focused on hand hygiene in relation to surgi-cal interventions/care ;

exciting information on how everyone can join together in an activity on or around 5 May that will continue to raise the global profile of hand hygiene in health care - to be announced soon!

a report on the 2015 WHO global Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Frame-work survey - to be released on 5 May;

a report on a global consumer survey on HAI and hand hygiene – on 5 May;

the SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands newsletter, aimed at keeping every-one updated on these useful resources as they are issued by WHO.

An on-going focus on hand hygiene improvement in all areas Hand hygiene in health care at the right time saves lives. The WHO Hand Hygiene Improvement Toolkit is available to sup-port anyone, in any setting, to participate in this global movement. Considering the priority of hand hygiene improvement in a broader context, 5 May 2016 also aims to support the water,

sanitation and hygiene (WASH) agenda, given that 35% of health-care facilities still do not have soap and water for hand

hygiene, among other things. Find out more: http://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/EN_PSP_GPSC1_5May_2016/en/

Continuing Education

CCCEP: The Education, COPD and Asthma courses have been accredited by Canadian Council on Continuing Education in Pharmacy. Pharmacists have been involved in development of the curricula and review of the content. The Canadian Council on Continuing Education in Pharmacy has confirmed accreditation as follows:

Education for Chronic Disease Management Course - 27.50 CEUs

COPD Management Course - 18.00 CEUs

Asthma Management Course - 17.50 CEUs For more information, please visit: https://resptrec.org/

World COPD Day

World COPD Day is organized by the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive

Lung Disease (GOLD) in collaboration with health care professionals and

COPD patient groups throughout the world. Its aim is to raise awareness

about chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and improve COPD care

throughout the world

Each year GOLD chooses a theme and coordinates preparation and distribu-

tion of World COPD Day materials and resources. World COPD Day activities are organized in each country by health care

professionals, educators, and members of the public who want to help reduce the burden of COPD.

The first World COPD Day was held in 2002. Each year organizers in more than 50 countries worldwide have carried out

activities, making the day one of the world's most important COPD awareness and education events.

http://www.goldcopd.org/wcd-about.html

http://www.aerihealth.me/

CACPT Continuing Professionalism* Program

Please be aware that the new CACPT Continuing Professionalism Program is accessible online and will require a username

and password. Please contact one of our board members for details.

Continuing Education: 1 hour = 1 credit

Example: webinar, journal article, lecture.

Workplace Activity: 1 hour = 1 credit

Example: lunch & learn, grand rounds, staff workshop.

Volunteering/CACPT business: 4 hours = 2 credits

Example: CACPT committee or meetings, Lung Association, Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Preceptorship: 4 hours = 2 credits

Example: CACPT students, medical students, demonstrations, teaching.

Advanced Continuing Education: each full day = 4 credits or 1 credit per lecture

Example: Spirotrec, COPD education, Advanced Cardiac Life Support, conference.

*Professionalism: the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well.

Education Committee Pulmonary Committee: Pulmonary Head: David Hu Committee Members: Bernie Ho Jennifer Hyde Bonnie Steadman Joyce Wu

Cardiac Committee: Cardiac Head: Elain Krieger Committee Members: Jeff Hamm Campbell Scherger

Medical Advisors: Pulmonary: Dr. Larry Lands Dr. Meredith Chiasson Cardiac: Dr. Neil Pearce Dr. Robert Teskey

National Registry Examination Registry exam: June 4, 2016

Looking for enthusiastic

member from Pacific

coast to join our Board of

Directors!

Articles

Suboptimal Care for Women With CAD Linked to Higher Long-Term Mortality By Caitlin E. Cox

Friday, February 26, 2016

Data from a US registry hint that there may well be ways to at least partially erase the sex disparity between women and men hospital-

ized for cardiac conditions. After they leave the hospital, women face higher 3-year mortality, but more than two-thirds of that differ-

ence seems to stem from “suboptimal care” at the time of discharge, researchers report.

“About 69% of the mortality disparity could in theory be reduced or eliminated if we just provided optimal, guideline-based care to

women at a similar rate as we do to men,” senior author Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, MA), told

TCTMD. He pointed out that the analysis took into account that some patients might have a legitimate contraindication to an aspect of

recommended care.

Along with lead author Shanshan Li, MD, ScD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Boston, MA), Bhatt and colleagues used

data from the Get With the Guidelines-Coronary Artery Disease Registry to perform a cohort study of 49,358 patients ages 65 years and

older who were admitted to 366 US hospitals between 2003 and 2009. Reasons for admission spanned the spectrum from chronic sta-

ble angina and ischemic heart disease to unstable angina and acute MI.

The researchers sought to understand whether optimal quality of care—including aspirin within 24 hours and at hospital discharge,

beta-blocker at discharge, ACE inhibitor/ARB at discharge for patients with low ejection fraction, smoking cessation counseling, and

lipid-lowering medications—might serve as a mediator of outcomes. Their findings were published online earlier this week in Circula-

tion: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Women were less likely to receive optimal care than were men (OR 0.92; 95% CI 0.88-0.95). Among patients given suboptimal care,

women had higher 3-year mortality than did their male counterparts (OR 1.25; 95% CI 1.00-1.05). The interplay between sex, quality of

care, and mortality risk was significant (P for interaction = .04).

“Approximately 69% of the sex disparity may potentially be reduced by providing optimal quality of care to women,” the authors as-

sert. Notably, the quality of care did not differ among racial/ethnic groups or geographic regions. While African-American patients were

one-third more likely than white patients to die within 3 years (OR 1.33; 95% 1.21-1.46), this disparity was not ameliorated for those

receiving optimal care.

Good News and Bad News

Acknowledging that the findings for women could be seen as “the glass is half full or half empty,” Bhatt said, “I actually interpret it as

good news because it means that whatever mortality gaps there are in women versus men, at least for coronary artery disease, a good

chunk of it can be reduced. . . . It would take effort, of course. It’s not an easy thing to always deliver optimal guideline-based care, but

it’s not as if it’s an unknown biological mechanism that has yet to be uncovered.”

That being said, he added, there could well be some biological differences that merit further study.

The persistent mortality risk seen for African-American patients “even if delivery of care is excellent,” Bhatt said, “is not such an opti-

mistic message.”

Delivery of care does vary by race and by socioeconomic status, he noted. “But even if those [disparities in care] were magically elimi-

nated, our study suggests that African-American patients would still have higher mortality. That is concerning, and that means there

are other factors. Not necessarily just fundamental biological factors; there could be other things that we couldn’t totally account for,

like access to healthcare or [a patient’s] socioeconomic status, but it is a bit more sobering message. It argues that there isn’t an as

apparent or easy a fix in African-Americans.

Source: Li S, Fonarow GC, Mukamal KJ, et al. Sex and race/ethnicity related disparities in care and outcomes after hospitalization for coronary artery

disease among older adults. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. 2016;Epub ahead of print.

http://www.tctmd.com/show.aspx?id=134019

Articles Con’t

LAA Closures

Submitted by: Elaine Krieger, Chief Supervisor at Royal University Hospital of Saskatoon, SK.

Occlusion of the left atrial appendage (LAA) for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) is intended to reduce the risk of

thromboembolic events. Among patients with non-valvular AF, the vast majority of thrombi is located within or in-

volves the LAA. While drug therapy may help these patients, not all are candidates for anticoagulation.

Enter percutaneous LAA closure devices. Currently, the only Canadian licensed LAA Closure device is the WATCHMAN

(Boston Scientific). The device is recapturable and repositionable.

This nitinol based device is covered with polyethylene terephthalate (PTFE), and has 10 anchors to aid tissue engage-

ment. With femoral vein access, it is deployed via a transseptal puncture under transesophageal and x-ray guidance. It

is generally a one hour procedure, and the patients go home the next day after a follow up transthoracic echo.

Because the WATCHMAN is permeable to blood, patients require conventional thromboembolic prophylaxis

with warfarin until endothelialization has completed at approximately 45 days post-implant. In addition, all patients are

treated with dual antiplatelet therapy of aspirin and clopidogrel daily for six months.

Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital was the first Canadian site to place the licensed devices on January 21, 2016,

though a number have been placed through special access. Our team consists of an Interventional Cardiologist, Electro-

physiologist, Anaesthetist, Echo cardiologist, cardiovascular technologists, Cath lab RN, medical radiation technologist,

and the WATCHMAN clinical specialist.

Chicken wing, windsock, and broccoli are all descriptions of LAA anatomy.

PFT Symposium 2015

Congratulations to Laura Seed for successfully organizing our First Annual Pulmonary Function Testing Symposium!

The PFT Symposium was a huge success. There were over 50 delegates in attendance, with all looking forward to next

year's symposium! Please stay tuned for more details. I would like to extend a big thank you to all the speakers: Dr.

Chung-Wai Chow, Angela Thomas, Andrea White-Markham and Patrick Burns and an extra special thanks to Dr. Allan

Coates as he has been a big supporter of the CACPT education forums.

Please find the powerpoint presentations from the symposium on our website.

President: Glenda Ryan

Health Sciences Center Cardio-Pulmonary Investigation Unit 300 Prince Phillip Dr. St. John´s, NF A1B 3V6 E-mail: Glenda.ryan@hotmail.com

Vice-President: Laura Seed

The Hospital for Sick Children Pulmonary Function Lab 555 University Avenue Toronto, ON M5G 1X8 E-mail: education@cacpt.ca

Secretary: Jamey Urquhart

QEII Health Sciences Centre Pulmonary Function Lab PO Box 900 Halifax, NS B3H 3A7 E-mail: Jamey.cacpt@hotmail.com

Education Chair: Laura Seed

The Hospital for Sick Children Pulmonary Function Lab 555 University Avenue Toronto, ON M5G 1X8 E-mail: education@cacpt.ca

Treasurer: Carol Collins

PO BOX 848 Station "A" Toronto, Ontario M5W 1G3 E-mail: carolc555@hotmail.com

Public Relations Officer: VACANT Membership: Elaine Krieger

Cardiac Catheterization Services Royal University Hospital Saskatoon, SK E-mail: elaine.krieger@saskatoonhealthregion.ca

Canadian Association of Cardiopulmonary Technologists

P.O. Box 848, Station “A”

Toronto, ON

Canada

M5W 1G3

Email: contactus@cacpt.ca

http://www.cacpt.ca

Board of Directors

The Board of Directors consists of six volunteer active members of the Canadian Association of Cardio-

Pulmonary Technologists (CACPT). The CACPT Board of Directors represents the entire country and is di-

vided into three regions: Pacific, Central and Atlantic. Each region typically has two members actively vol-

unteering with the CACPT Board of Directors, therefore each region is represented. Each year, members

are encouraged to nominate fellow members to serve on the CACPT Board of Directors for a two-year

term, if elected. Every year there are three positions open to nominations, one from each of the three

regions.