Renee Logan

Renee Logan has been a champion for patient safety and quality at the University Hospital of Northern BC (UHNBC) for nearly 30 years, first as a front-line clinician and educator, then as a leader in the field of parenteral therapy.

Since 2008, she has led many projects and initiatives that have improved the quality of care delivered to patients in acute care, as well as in home and community services.

Parenteral therapies are treatments and medications delivered to patients via a needle or catheter, such as a blood product transfusion or an antibiotic delivered intravenously. Many treatments are taken for weeks or months; other patients require them for their entire life. Parenteral services require collaboration, education and innovation to provide seamless and coordinated service to patients, who may avoid or refuse treatments if they are painful, prolonged or difficult.

In 2005, Renee taught herself to use an ultrasound to improve the placement of peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs), which are used to deliver medication into the central vein. The use of an ultrasound makes it possible to provide PICC lines and peripheral IVs to patients whose veins may be too difficult to access otherwise. Since then, Renee’s ultrasound-guided peripheral IV insertions have been very successful, she rarely has to poke a patient more than once, minimizing their discomfort and speeding up the process of delivery.

Renee provides ongoing training for staff and physicians in numerous areas, including infusion devices, patient assessment, nursing care, infection prevention, and patient education. As part of Renee’s training efforts for peripheral and central IV inserts, for the past nine years there has been a zero rate of infections related to PICCs at UHNBC.

Beyond UHNBC, Renee developed a range of educational modules for nurses in Northern Health, including a training manual for central lines, an insertion checklist for physicians and PICC nurses, and a six-hour workshop held bimonthly for nurses to upgrade or refresh their skills. She also created an ongoing assessment and maintenance checklist that nurses use each day at the bedside. After being appointed as the Northern Health representative to the Provincial Blood Coordinating Office in 2009, Renee worked with nurse leaders and educators across the health authority to implement guidelines for safe transfusion practices, which improved care for patients across the region.

Renee is an active, certified member of the Canadian Vascular Access Association and was a part of a national team to create guidelines for occlusion management of central lines, the first of its kind in North America. In 2013, Renee became the first nurse in Western Canada to be certified with the Infusion Nurses Society, an American organization that writes the standards and guidelines for vascular access and infusion therapy that are used world-wide. This passion for continually improving her own skills and knowledge, as well as that of Northern Health’s parenteral services department, has led Renee to accomplish a wide range of care quality enhancements, improving the safety and comfort of thousands of patients each year.