Current State of Practice

Cardiac assist devices (also known as ventricular assist device) are used to provide long-term circulatory support that can be either outside the body or internally housed. Currently, literature does not provide information regarding best practices for external cardiac assist device dressing change. Limited literature exists for internally housed cardiac assist device care.

The purpose is to assess how centers are performing the dressing change related to frequency, process, and products used to clean and dress cardiac assist devices that sit outside of the body.