Billings Clinic perfusionist team earns national award for excellence
Billings Clinic Perfusionist Team
The Billings Clinic perfusionist team, left to right: Sherri Harper, Tyler Jumper, Brian Reeder and Hannah Hedtke.
Billings, MT – In 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Billings Clinic perfusionist team made the decision to overhaul how it operates. The team is a vital part of the cardiovascular surgical team and operates critical life support machines, such as heart-lung machines and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), which takes over a patient’s heart and lung functions when their organs don’t work on their own.
“We adopted a whole new philosophy focused on ‘how do we train, how do we educate,’ said Brian Reeder, one of four perfusionists at Billings Clinic. “When you have patients in these critical situations, you have to make sure you’re doing everything you can to do the best for them.”
Those three years of hard work were recognized this spring when the team was awarded the 2024 AmSECT Pillar Award. Coming from the perfusionists’ national professional society, the Pillar Award recognizes individual perfusion departments which demonstrate excellence based on key metrics including organized orientation and training, QA/QI process, continuing education and performance evaluation, development of institutional protocols, adherence to AmSECT Standards and Guidelines, employee education and commitment to the field of perfusion.
There are about 4,700 perfusionists in the U.S. working on teams at about 1,000 health care organizations. Billings Clinic’s team is one of just 15 to ever earn the Pillar Award. The team's work to rewrite its practice standards and guidelines, based on national best practices, helped to put it in a position to earn the award.
This included updating its regular training practices, rewriting policies, implementing quality initiatives focused on improved patient outcomes based on peer reviewed studies and creating detailed plans and checklists for a variety of different scenarios they might encounter during patient care.
“It all came down to asking, ‘How can we get better?’” Reeder said. “And I can say that all of that training and preparation saves real lives.”
Perfusionists work closely with surgical teams – such as cardiovascular, thoracic and cardiology – during lifesaving procedures such as open-heart surgery or other procedure when it’s necessary to artificially support or temporarily replace a patient's circulatory or respiratory function. This helps to maintain the patient’s vital functions during care.
About Billings Clinic
Billings Clinic and Logan Health combined in September 2023 to create Montana’s largest independent health system. A not-for-profit organization led by a physician CEO, Billings Clinic is governed by a board of community members, nurses and physicians. At its core, Billings Clinic is a physician-led, integrated multispecialty group practice with an ACS-verified Level I Trauma Center. As a health system Billings Clinic is affiliated with 18 hospitals and clinics in communities across Montana and Wyoming, along with four regional branch clinics. Billings Clinic is the first established and longest standing continually accredited trauma center in the state of Montana, and the only Comprehensive Stroke Center in Montana and Wyoming. Billings Clinic has more than 4,500 employees, including nearly 600 physicians and advanced practitioners offering more than 80 specialties. Billings Clinic is the first Magnet-designated health care organization for nursing in Montana and is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network. More information can be found at www.billingsclinic.com.
