WAC 246-310-735   Partnering agreements.  The applicant hospital must have a signed written agreement with a hospital providing on-site cardiac surgery. This agreement must include, at minimum, provisions for:

     (1) Coordination between the nonsurgical hospital and surgical hospital's availability of surgical teams and operating rooms. The hospital with on-site surgical services is not required to maintain an available surgical suite twenty-four hours, seven days a week.

     (2) Assurance the backup surgical hospital can provide cardiac surgery during all hours that elective PCIs are being performed at the applicant hospital.

     (3) Transfer of all clinical data, including images and videos, with the patient to the backup surgical hospital.

     (4) Communication by the physician(s) performing the elective PCI to the backup hospital cardiac surgeon(s) about the clinical reasons for urgent transfer and the patient's clinical condition.

     (5) Acceptance of all referred patients by the backup surgical hospital.

     (6) The applicant hospital's mode of emergency transport for patients requiring urgent transfer. The hospital must have a signed transportation agreement with a vendor who will expeditiously transport by air or land all patients who experience complications during elective PCIs that require transfer to a backup hospital with on-site cardiac surgery.

     (7) Emergency transportation beginning within twenty minutes of the initial identification of a complication.

     (8) Evidence that the emergency transport staff are certified. These staff must be advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) certified and have the skills, experience, and equipment to monitor and treat the patient en route and to manage an intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP).

     (9) The hospital documenting the transportation time from the decision to transfer the patient with an elective PCI complication to arrival in the operating room of the backup hospital. Transportation time must be less than one hundred twenty minutes.

     (10) At least two annual timed emergency transportation drills with outcomes reported to the hospital's quality assurance program.

     (11) Patient signed informed consent for adult elective (and emergent) PCIs. Consent forms must explicitly communicate to the patients that the intervention is being performed without on-site surgery backup and address risks related to transfer, the risk of urgent surgery, and the established emergency transfer agreements.

     (l2) Conferences between representatives from the heart surgery program(s) and the elective coronary intervention program. These conferences must be held at least quarterly, in which a significant number of preoperative and post-operative cases are reviewed, including all transport cases.

     (13) Addressing peak volume periods (such as joint agreements with other programs, the capacity to temporarily increase staffing, etc.).



[Statutory Authority: RCW 70.38.128. 09-01-113, § 246-310-735, filed 12/19/08, effective 12/19/08.]