The CVAA Link: Summer 2021

THE CVAA

Newsletter of the Canadian Vascular Access Association

Summer 2021

CVAA / BD Award Winners The CVAA Board of Directors is pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 – CVAA/BD Excellence in Vascular Access Management & Infusion Therapy Award! The award recognizes the important contributions made in vascular access management and infusion therapy practice with a focus on peripheral IV therapy.

Purpose of the award: • Promote safety and quality improvement in peripheral IV vascular access management and infusion practices for optimal patient outcomes • Recognize champions and trailblazers in Canadian vascular access management and infusion therapy practice • Raise the awareness of the impact of individual contributions to system-wide results.

We had a great number of deserving applicants and the submissions were blindly reviewed by a committee of Board members. We are very pleased to announce the following recipients:

CVAA is appreciative of the initiative and support of BD Canada, one of our 2021 Platinum Corporate Members, and wishes to thank them for funding this award.

First Place: National Winner & Regional Winner – Krista Getson, Prince County Hospital, Summerside, PE

Second Place: Regional Winner – Demar Thompson, King Edward Memorial Hospital, Bermuda

Third Place: Regional Winner – Patricia Connick, PConnick Consulting, Bracebridge, ON

The regional and national recipient(s) received an education grant to be used for educational pursuits and a registration for the CVAA conference where they were presented with the award.

Chapter Events Our chapters are still standing and working to provide you with education in your local region. Some chapters have been hosting virtual events while others are cautiously planning for fall in-person events! Watch each chapter page at www.cvaa.info Recently, the Vancouver CVAA chapter and the Fraser Valley CVAA chapter held two virtual collaboration events—one on April 7 and another on June 8. The silver lining to our lives going fully online is that we can connect with those we typically don’t get to see as often. The partnership of these two chapters produced two wellattended speaker education events with robust Q&As.

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First Virtual CVAA Conference are very pleased with how the conference was received and the feedback has been terrific: “I took away a piece from all the sessions I attended and looking forward to going back to the sessions I didn’t attend.”

Whew! That was an exciting endeavour! Due to the uncertainty and inability to travel, we held our national conference fully virtually for the first time ever this past April 28–30, 2021, and it was a great success! We presented our regular schedule of education through plenary and concurrent sessions, hands-on Skills Labs (yes, still hands on!), held engaging exhibit hall time, and also did our best to network and connect in this new world. We

“Congratulations to the team on doing a fabulous job. Continue to have a VIRTUAL ASPECT for future CVAA Conferences to capture a wider audience.”

Photo courtesy of Celine Messier

“The conference was great, lots of great up-to-date information, good review of best practices and such.

Great job!”

While we are all very excited to return to in person in 2022 (PEI here we come!), the virtual experience was well received and with the hands-on delegate kits, attendees had a small taste of the real thing.

Photo courtesy of Ivan Mosses Garcia

Please Save the Date for April 27–29, 2022, as we are welcomed with open arms and warm hospitality that only Islanders can give in Charlottetown, PEI.

Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Martin

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CVAA / AVA Webinars We are thrilled to be presenting a series of “Collabinars” with AVA this year. We have had a longstanding strong relationship with AVA and we are pleased to share education and experts, as we share a Canadian and American viewpoints on several clinical issues. The first collabinar took place on June 8, 2021, with Sheryl McDiarmid and Chellie DeVries presenting on “Beyond doing: Using data to advance your practice (and be your patient’s advocate)” We look forward to our next event this fall! Is there a topic you’d like to learn about? Let us know. Email cvaa@cvaa.info today.

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New Release—Guidelines Implementation Toolkit Module The Guidelines Implementation Group is pleased to release two new tools in the latest Module of the Guidelines Toolkit. We have also reorganized the existing tools to make them more easily accessible. We now have four main Modules and tools that are created will be released under each Module: • VAD Selection & Insertion • VAD Management & Complications • Clinical Practice • Infusion Therapy and Other Access The latest tools to be released can be found here and include a VAD Care & Maintenance Bundle and a PVAD Insertion Checklist.

Watch for more tools this fall!

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Sneak Peek We are working on something exciting for our members—to launch later this summer. Watch your CVAA email and website for more peeks!

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