Blog - Clearflow

Evolving Care Pathways in Cardiac Surgery Recovery: The Expanding Focus on Drainology in Chest Drain Management

In the realm of cardiac surgery, advancements aren’t solely about the procedures performed within the operating room. They also extend to the meticulous care and management post-surgery, crucial for ensuring optimal patient outcomes. One groundbreaking subject that has been gaining momentum on the podiums at the surgical meetings such as the American Association of Thoracic Surgery (AATS), European Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery (EACTS), the Asian Society of Cardiovascular…

Modernizing Your ICU Chest Tube Patency Protocol?

How Leading Hospitals are Developing Protocols to Proactively Maintain Chest Tube Patency after Heart Surgery: Improving outcomes and reducing hospital costs is a continual effort in modern healthcare. For heart surgery patients, a good place to start is by focusing on something that is common to nearly all recovering patients. All cardiac surgery patients have some degree of post-operative bleeding and chest tubes are required to evacuate this blood from…

COVID-19 Pandemic – Message from our CEO

ClearFlow is dedicated to protecting quality of life by advancing healing with sustainable medical technology. During these unprecedented times with the developing coronavirus (COVID-19) situation, our core values continue to drive our decisions as we prioritize the health of our immediate and extended ClearFlow family. As the situation continues to evolve, we also understand the uncertainty and disruption you are facing. Our goal is to ensure that we…

With Retained Blood, Bleeding Begets More Bleeding after Cardiac Surgery

All patients who have surgery have some degree of bleeding in the mediastinum in the immediate postoperative period, called Shed Mediastinal Blood (SMB). Usually this is a microvascular oozing rather than dramatic surgical bleeding. SMB must be cleared by chest tubes placed to evacuate it until the bleeding stops, usually in the first 12 hours after surgery.1 Any impairment in the evacuation of SMB by chest tubes can result…

Level 1A Evidence that Reducing Retained Blood Prevents POAF and Effusions After Cardiac Surgery

The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery published a recent manuscript entitled “Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials assessing safety and efficacy of posterior pericardial drainage in patients undergoing heart surgery”. Nineteen randomized controlled trials enrolled 3,425 patients who were analyzed to determine if efforts to reduce retained blood around the heart after heart surgery might reduce postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF), retained blood syndrome (pericardial effusions,…

Preparing to Implement an ERAS Cardiac Surgery Value Quality Care Initiative

Most hospitals are exploring opportunities to improve outcomes and achieve positive financial results with bundled continuous quality improvement programs, but “Where to start?” is a common question. Bundled payment sets a single spending target for all applicable health care servicesprovided during a clinical episode of care over a specified time period. One way this is getting done in cardiac surgery is with MIPS and MACRA. The goal of…

Expert Consensus Opinion Suggest Preventing Retained Blood To Reduce Infections After Cardiac Surgery

All patients having heart surgery are required to have drainage catheters to remove shed blood from around the heart and lungs in the early hours of recovery following surgery. Evidence has shown that these drainage catheters have a high failure rate due to clogging. Chest tube clogging when a patient is still bleeding can lead to Retained Blood Syndrome (RBS). Retained blood can be demonstrated in up to…

ICU Bottlenecks after Cardiac Surgery: The case for active clearance of chest tubes

The world of heart surgery is fast paced for all involved. Elective patients are scheduled, emergent cases are added on, and both are sometimes bumped for emergency cases that present at the last moment and need immediate surgery. This makes it difficult to staff operating rooms and CVICUs in a manner that allows maximum efficiency of case throughput. Routine cases suffer the most delays when bottlenecks develop in…

Open Chest Tube Clearance of Clot: Is it safe? Is there a better way?

Chest tubes are required for all heart operations to evacuate shed blood from around the heart and lungs. Evidence suggests that nearly 36% of chest tubes can clog, preventing adequate blood evacuation and potentially leading to retained blood syndrome (RBS). But how do you keep chest tubes free of clot and working to evacuate shed blood? There are currently no published national standards, and thus nurses and ICU…

The Challenges of Keeping a Chest Tube Free of Clogging after Heart Surgery

Chest tubes are used on every case after heart surgery to drain blood from around the heart and lungs in the early hours of recovery.1,2 If there is any bleeding, or even oozing tissues, the blood must be immediately drained externally by the chest tubes. But chest tubes frequently clot, which can lead to Retained Blood Syndrome (RBS), which includes the need for re-interventions to wash out clot,…