The VAM Family

Tammy Hufcut, RN- President

Tammy Hufcut is the founder and a primary PICC inserter of Vascular Access Management (VAM). Her nursing career began at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, NJ in the Mother/Baby unit with primary emphasis in high risk cases. After gaining experience at this large tertiary facility, she joined Orange Regional Medical Center at the Horton campus in the Mother/Baby unit. Although a difficult decision, she later transferred to Radiology working with Interventional Radiologists for various procedures including PICC line placement. Her vision and understanding of the need for PICC nurses began there.

She realized that is not economical for facilities to establish a dedicated PICC team, nor is it usually possible to maintain competencies without a dedicated unit. Further, using Interventional Radiologists along with the expense of transport, nursing and ancillary costs for PICC lines it is a wasteful use of assets and talent. Through research and thorough understanding of the procedure, Tammy developed VAM, a specialized PICC nursing service that provides PICC placement, care, and education to the facilities in and around Orange County.

Since establishing VAM, Tammy has successfully provided quality service to an ever growing number of health care facilities. She has successfully taught and educated all the nurses now employed with VAM and continues to promote continued education in this specialty for all staff members. In addition, her technique and dedication to inserting PICCs, promoting education to health care providers and emphasizing and requiring strict aspectic technique for all phases of PICC line insertions and maintenance insures continued satisfaction of patients, nurses, doctors, and numerous healthcare institutions and agencies.

Tanya King-Edwards, RN- Regional Manager

Tanya King-Edwards began her nursing career at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey. Throughout her tenure there she was introduced to various aspects of nursing while gaining a vast amount of broad ranged nursing experience and expertise in Cardiopulmonary, Telemetry, Orthopedic and Psychiatric units. In 2006, Tanya's nursing career followed another direction when she took the knowledge she acquired at Englewood to meet the needs of patients returning home from acute and sub-acute facilities. As a home care nurse with The Visiting Nurse Services of Westchester County in NY she assisted discharged patients and those patients in the community to return to a physical and emotional level to function outside a health care facility.

As an accredited PICC line nurse and Regional Manager with VAM, Tanya continues to maintain those standards and dedication, developed long ago, today in her practice. With hundreds of successfully placed PICC lines, patients are provided with IV access for various short and long term needs for use at home or in facilities thereby increasing patients functional capacity. Understanding the unique power of being home to recuperate, she is able to combine this with other patient benefits such as decreased needle sticks and ideal central access thereby increasing patient satisfaction, recovery, and well being. In addition to being a primary PICC inserter, she is also responsible for educating both patients and new PICC nurses in the clinical setting.

Diane Beggin, RN- Clinical Educator

Diane Beggin had the luxury of having a successful career in one industry, "retiring" then reentering the work force in the second career of her choice. Initially working for Dean Witter Reynolds in California later transferring to the World Trade Center in New York, she became a vice president. During her career in various departments and working with outside agencies, training and education were always a primary focus. Individual and group education, from branch, national and foreign department personnel to clients, writing policies and procedures, training guides and manuals were an integral aspect of instruction. Her nursing career began at Good Samaritan Hospital in the CCU. After a disabling injury, nursing took a different course in private duty before joining VAM.

Currently Diane's functions as a PICC nurse specialist follow two distinct but interrelated paths. Clinically her primary role is that of a circulating nurse with experiences in clinical aspects such as inserting, declotting, care and maintenance. As a Clinical Nurse Educator her responsibilities include not only in-service teaching for various facilities, institutions and agencies, writing website articles and newsletters but also performing internal and external quality assurance assignments and providing intra-company dissemination of current trends and changes to standards of care. There is usually an overlap in clinical and educational functions. Being in the clinical field provides a window of topics which may be beneficial to address via education to any and all of those that have or care for PICC lines.

Jillanne McGowan, RN- PICC Specialist

Jillanne McGowan, as a nurse, currently performs two extremes in her nursing practice. Initially at Ellenville Hospital in Ellenville, NY, she demonstrated superior health care in wide ranged disciplines including Med/Surg, Critical Care, and the OR. With this knowledge of various departments, she later joined Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, NY in Med/Surg, Same Day Surgery and the Short Stay Until before entering Emergency Room Medicine, where she continues to work today. Working in the Emergency Department, she aids patients at their most disabling time. While treating those with multiple and diverse illnesses and needs, typically on an urgent basis, her practice at times, however, may lack the individual care she desires to provide.

While the ongoing love and practice of Emergency Room Medicine remains today, Jillanne quickly and expertly became an accredited PICC Nurse Specialist. In this specialty, she continually meets and exceeds her goals and desires to deliver individual, one-on-one nursing care. Having skillfully inserted hundred of PCC lines with VAM, Jillanne not only values the interaction with patients but directly impacts the speed in which a patient returns to an enhanced state of health. Due to her ED practice and her unique insight to these patients' needs, she recognizes the multiple benefits of PICC lines. By inserting them, she actively helps numerous patients further allowing opportunities of professional satisfaction and personal rewards.

Jane Gambino, RN- PICC Specialist

Jane Gambino's nursing practice is based upon a love of the profession resulting in a high level of service professionally and personally. Her nursing career originally was established at Orange Regional Medical Center Horton Campus in Middletown, NY and continued until she became a PICC Nursing Specialist. While at ORMC, she worked in most areas of the hospital including Med/Surge, Pediatrics, Orthopedics, Mother/Baby, Urology, Oncology, Rehabilitation, and Critical Care. Jane also participated in various committees including Wound Care and the development of the Rapid Response Team. While practicing at ORMC, she worked in other health care facilities at the same time such as Janed Recreation Village United Cerebral Palsy adult summer camp, Interim Healthcare Staffing Agency, Willcare, and Middletown Park Manor Rehabilitation Center. In those venues she not only provided expert nursing skills but also nursing supervision, human resource functions, education, mental health care, and immunization clinics.

As she continues to provide personal community service with The American Red Cross, and Aids Related Community Services and Middletown Health Center, her professional dedication took the next step as a PICC Nurse Specialist. This practice utilizes the vast expertise she obtained from various nursing departments, roles and responsibilities, and employers. Her love of nursing and being an advocate for patients insure clinical expertise as she expertly provides IV access to a variety of patients with wide ranging illnesses. Committed to her profession and her patients, PICC nursing allow Jane a way to provide optimal nursing care and promoting the numerous benefits to patients and healthcare facilities alike.