Reston Nurse Recognized By EMS Council For Improving Patient Outcomes

RESTON, VA — Harmony Vazquez received an award from the Fairfax and Loudoun county and Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority fire departments, recognizing her contributions in improving the outcomes of patients at Reston Hospital Center.

An experienced health care worker, Vazquez's primary job is to provide quality metrics for RCH's cardiovascular department. But, she voluntarily expanded her role to assist the hospital's emergency medical services liaison by sending timely follow-up reports directly to EMTs/paramedics who transported patients to the hospital.

These reports not only helped the first responders to assess and improve what they do, they also "closed-the-loop" on the very human outcome of their rescue efforts by letting them know what happened to a patient they assisted.

In recognition for her work, the Northern Virginia EMS Council recent presented Vasquez with the 2022 Regional Award for Outstanding Achievement in EMS.

Patch recently spoke to Vasquez and asked her a few questions about the work she does and her thoughts about receiving the award.

Patch: Tell me about the work you do at Reston Hospital Center.

Vasquez: I work in our cardiovascular department. Technically, I work under like our Cath Lab, we have something called the Cardiovascular Recovery Unit. I do all their quality data. I help run meetings between all our cardiologists and our admin and EMS. I kind of do all the behind the scenes work.

How did you get involved in helping out the fire and rescue departments?

At the Cath Lab, we take care of patients that come in with heart attacks. We'll do a procedure to open up their valves in their heart, so the blood keeps flowing. It's a huge thing and we're on a time limit. It's a 90 minute window from arrival to getting this procedure done just to help the patient as soon as possible. EMS brings in those patients to us. We work directly with them. They alert our team before they even come into the hospital, so we have a lot of communication with EMS regarding patient care, specifically for me with heart attack patients, but obviously we do it for other diagnosis as well.

What type of interaction do the EMS workers have with a patient, once they bring them to the hospital?

They can follow their patient into our Cath Lab if they want to, if they have time. ... We have a lot of collaboration with them back and forth. But specifically, they can email me or leave a card if they want any follow up on their patient. They do pick up the patient from their house or the nursing home, and they bring them to the ER. They don't know what happens to their patient, and they really do want to follow up with their patient to make sure they're OK.

What type of information are the EMTs looking for?

Part of it is making sure that they had the right diagnosis, making sure that they were doing everything they could because they really do have limited information compared to what we have in the hospital. They're not getting labs or tests like we have. So we give them the final bit of information. To me, this was just part of my job. I'm just closing the loop for everyone, letting them know, "We're doing this good. We need to work on this."

What do you think about receiving the award from the Northern Virginia EMS Council?

That award thing with the contribution to EMS actually surprised me. They didn't tell me about it. And I honestly didn't know it meant so much to them to get this feedback. I knew it was important. As a nurse myself, you always want to know how your patients are doing. ... The assistant medical director at Fairfax EMS told me that he knows when someone gets an email, because someone shouts it out, "I got it, right." Because I emailed them and said, "It was a heart attack. You identified it. We took them to the Cath lab and they they went home two days later." ... It's always nice to know that what you're doing, even if it's your day to day [job], it made a difference to somebody and helped them provide even better care for their patients."