Columbia Asia Hospitals, Global Health Alliance and University of Leeds have collaborated to run a joint certification programme for cardiac care technicians in India. This is the first time such a cardiac care technician has undergone this training in India.
“The first batch has successfully undergone a six month course that was organised at Columbia Asia Referral Hospital – Yeshwanthpur (Bengaluru) to train Nurses and Healthcare professionals to become CCTs”, said Dr Rajay Narain, director, Global Health Alliance.
The course was led by Rhona Riley, lead of cardiac physiology, University of Leeds and Dr. Prabhakar Shetty, chief of cardiology, Columbia Asia Hospitals, Bengaluru with the support of the cardiology team and Dr. Chandrika Kambam, vice president, clinical services.
“This six-month course is jointly run and certified by the University of Leeds and the Global Health Alliance. The cardiac care technicians will now be able to work and carry out various procedures along with the cardiologists in the catheterization lab and cardiology department”, said Dr. Nandakumar Jairam, chairman and group medical director, Columbia Asia Hospitals-India.
“In western countries, each and every catheterization lab has a Cardiac Care Technician who undergoes structured training and then work closely with the interventional cardiologists to deliver care. In case of India, such a training programme was a need of the hour”, said Binu Sharma, senior vice president, nursing care.
“The skills of a cardiac care technician is critical to the care given to a patient, hence the technicians need to constantly upgrade the skills with the latest technologies. The course is a structured and systematic way to up skill the technicians on various skills that are required for quality patient care”, said Riley.
The programme covers six months module created by University of Leeds, faculty from UK, a local mentor who is the chief of cardiology department, Columbia Asia Bengaluru, hospital clinical attachments, assessment at the end of the course by faculty from UK and certification from the University of Leeds as ‘Cardiac care technician’ on passing all the modules
The skills achieved by the cardiac care technician include candidates to perform 12 lead ECGs, basic ECG Interpretation & Cardiac Monitoring, Ambulatory BP Application and Understanding, Ambulatory ECG Application, ECG event recorder application, assist in various Cath-Lab procedures, assist with exercise tolerance testing, prepare patients for cardiac diagnostic testing, pacemaker follow up, echocardiography and team management.