Scope of Service

Overview:
Radiology nursing is provided in the areas of Computed Tomography (CT), Nuclear Medicine, Ultrasound, Special Procedures, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Services are also provided to inpatients at the bedside for moderate sedation for procedures.

Source of the patients:
Emergency room, inpatients, and outpatients

Types and Ages of Patients Served:
Radiology nursing serves all populations related to diagnostic radiology. All ages are serviced in the radiology department including pediatric patients through geriatric.

Description of Internal and External Customers:
Internal customers served include other radiology staff (radiology techs, schedulers, physicians, etc), nursing units, operating room, outpatient testing, central scheduling, physician referral services (PRS), cardiovascular laboratories, patients and families, and all ancillary departments of the hospital. External customers we serve include, but are not limited to: external nursing homes, other contracted medical services, outlying hospitals, the local community, and multiple physician offices.

Conditions and Diagnosis Treated:
Conditions treated may include but not limited to:Any conditions requiring moderate sedation for radiological interventions, monitoring during radiological-invasive interventions with or without sedation, cardiac testing, or any inpatient requiring moderate sedation.

Types of Services and Care Provided:
Preprocedural work-up, preparation and teaching of patients and their families or support systems. Managing the demands of unscheduled procedures requiring nursing intervention for all modalities in radiology. Completion of the nursing assessment, monitoring and administration of moderate sedation, post procedural recovery and initiation of discharge planning as appropriate. On occasion, the radiology nurses provide direct care for pediatric cases requiring moderate sedation. Nursing care is provided by an RN in collaboration with other members of the radiology team who perform the radiology aspects of the procedure. The physician performing the procedure provides medical care for the patient. Other multi-disciplinary team members involved in the care of the patient include: radiology technologist, LPN’s, PCA’s, PI/Outcome coordinators, pharmacy, lab, and other ancillary team members as needed.

Sites where services and care is provided:
Radiology department and patient rooms for inpatient moderate sedations. Outpatients report to Outpatient testing department for registration, then the rest of the services are provided in the needed department. Inpatient procedures (TEE’s and bone marrow biopsies) requiring moderate sedation are performed at the bedside.

Times when services and care is provided:
Radiology nursing is available from 0700-1730 Monday – Friday. Care is provided after hours, weekends and holidays for emergent cases with on-call staff.