The highly specialized skills of registered nurses (RNs) in the cardiac catheterization laboratory pose unique problems for administrators when dealing with staffing shortages. Faced with a temporary reduction of 25% of the total RN labor and 50% of the procedural RN labor, a cardiac catheterization laboratory in north central Illinois resorted to cross-training RNs through all the phases of care, including preadmission, preprocedural, intraprocedural, and postprocedural care. This creative staffing solution solved the short-term staffing issue and had the added benefit of improving interpositional team knowledge and morale.
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