This report describes a prospective randomized trial of 503 patients who underwent a cardiac catheterization or interventional procedure at a single institution. In an effort to study femoral complications postprocedure, we evaluated three methods of femoral artery hemostasis as well as 38 variables that were felt to potentially relate to local complications. Only a marginally significant relationship between the hemostasis method and complication rate was found. The factors that contributed to femoral artery complications were: restarting heparin postsheath removal, number of procedures done during one hospitalization, noncompliance of the patient with bedrest after the procedure, number of arterial punctures to initiate the procedure, and preprocedure treatment with corticosteroids.

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Discussion: Data suggests the number and nature of interruptions leads to fragmentation of nurses' workflow. Conclusions: The use of an NIZ was found to decrease the interruptions experienced by preoperative nurses during the PAA thereby decreasing workflow fragmentation. Implications for Practice: Decreasing the number of interruptions has the potential to improve patient safety by enhancing the quality of information the nurse obtains during the PAA.