Vascular Access Team (VAT) video podcast #3—Overcoming barriers and creating a business case

This is the third video in a five-part series to better understand how VATs are created, their impact on patient safety and satisfaction, and their organisational effectiveness.

In this segment, the panel of VAT leads interviewed share the barriers and challenges they met in creating their service and the necessity of developing a strong business case for it.

Barriers and challenges

One of the challenges of establishing a VAT is developing a thorough set of protocols that encompasses all members of the hospital staff. An anaesthesiologist from a hospital in Italy explains how revolutionary it was to create local best practice protocols and procedures for their 5,500-member hospital staff covering vascular access (VA), device selection, placement, care and maintenance and associated complications prevention, management and monitoring. He explains the challenge of best practice standardisation and the required efforts of continuous sustainability.

A barrier that hospitals face is budgetary constraints. When advocating for a VAT, there may be resistance if the key clinical and economic impacts are not clearly perceived and measured. It is important to demonstrate value when making your business case. 

Creating a business case

When creating a business case to establish a VAT, three of the five panel VAT experts interviewed explained that they conducted before and after studies and collected data analysing the costs and benefits.

One of the experts from a hospital in Spain presented data that showed hiring three nurses for a VAT resulted in cost savings through reduced IV complication rates and length of hospital stays.

A hospital in Italy compared services to understand if using a VAT was more expensive than patients receiving standard procedures. They found that the VAT service improved workflow, efficiency and, hence, resulted in cost savings.

A hospital in France created a VAT business plan that included cost estimates and the reimbursement value of its activities. 

For a business case created at a hospital in London, a lead VA nurse included data to demonstrate their current state, next step objectives and the resources needed to achieve them.

Hear directly from VAT specialists

Watch this video to hear first-hand experiences from specialists who have successfully implemented VATs.

Next in the series

Stay tuned for the next video in the series:

  • Definition of a VAT, structure, and impact  
  • How VATs are being set up across Europe 
  • Overcoming barriers and creating a business case 
  • Monitoring outcomes, learning and continuous improvement
  • Raising awareness

If you would like to see the previous article and video about how VATs are being set up across Europe, please click here.

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References

Approval number: BD-35906




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