Pacemaker interrogation

Specialties CCU

Published

Who is responsible for interrogating pacemakers? Is that a job an RN, specifically a cardio ICU RN, would be qualified for? Any info on special training/job search ideas/specific job description would be much appreciated. Thank you!

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Whenever we have an order for it a representative from the actual pacemaker company comes to interrogate it.

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Specializes in CTICU.

Depends what you mean. If you mean external pacemaker attached to epicardial wires, often cardiac ICU RNs can check the settings. If you mean permanent implanted pacemaker/defibrillator, it's someone from Electrophysiology - may be an RN, NP or a physician who brings the correct box to interrogate each brand of PPM. Or as stated, during business hours sometime it is a rep from the company.

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Just about to complete my first year as a Cardiac Device Nurse. I am an RN-BSN with ICU experience. Had to have strong understanding of cardiac rhythms.....rest of training has been on the job. Our clinic interrogates and troubleshoots pacers, ICDs, CRT devices.

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Specializes in Quality, Cardiac Stepdown, MICU.

We call St. Jude or Medtronic. Usually they come early the next morning, but if it's something needed stat I'm sure they have someone on call. I do not believe they have RN training.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

We call the electrophysiology lab and it is usually a cardiac physician that comes to the bedside to interrogate implanted permanent pacemakers. I'm also in a university teaching hospital.

Can I just say, that I am always thankful when this is done. :) I always feel uneasy when I'm unsure of a patient's pacemaker settings/device type.

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Specializes in Critical care.

(The original post was made back in Dec, fyi, but what the hey).

The actual interrogation could be taught in a matter of minutes. The expertise comes into play in interpreting the results and making adjustments. In my 240 bed hospital, specific pacemaker reps perform those duties. We don't have an EP lab. The few pacer reps I know are all unlicensed folks with varied backgrounds in psychology, cardiac monitor techs, etc with lots of specialized pacer training. I've not seen that any of those duties are done by the bedside RN.

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All the staff in our Cardiac Device Clinic are RN-BSN nurses. We do not work for a cardiac device manufacturer and do not work for a hospital. We work with a team of cardiologists/EP doctors. And the actual interrogation can NOT be taught in minutes. Where did you get that idea? The thought that interrogation could be taught in minutes is uninformed and dangerous. Are you aware that when you use a programmer you have control of a patient's heart? There are dependent patients who MUST be paced and the potential exists in the programmer to cause pacing to be at voltages that are less than necessary to capture the heart. I have heard of patients passing out on the floor because an uneducated person attempted to interrogate their device and caused prolonged pauses in therapy causing syncope. Further, each manufacturer's programmer has it's own format and different devices can have different platform appearance within the programmer. All the nurses in our clinic have been trained to use the programmer from each manufacturer.

The cardiac device representatives in our area are highly educated....some with PhD's and are nurses, engineers or other professionals who have received extensive education in cardiac device technology. Some are licensed, others are not, all are educated professionals.

Believe me, cardiac devices are extremely sophisticated pieces of medical machinery that are FAR beyond the failure to sense and failure to capture that we were all taught in nursing school.

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Specializes in Critical care.

Nevermind.

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I am a cardiac device tech and have been for 6 years. I don't have any fancy credentials after my name but I know more than most RN's when it comes to devices. I also don't work for a device company or for a hospital I work for a group of EP's. The devices can be checked by simply calling the device company of the particular model (ie. Medtroinc, Boston Scientific, St. Jude, or Biotronik)that the patient has implanted. To learn this skill it takes most a minimum of a year-2 years to feel completely comfortable doing routine checks and troubleshooting on a device. All of my training was on the job, I had taken an EMT-B course so I had some previous medical knowledge.

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Hey, I am interested in becoming a Cardiac device nurse. What would be the steps I would need to take to becoming a cardiac device nurse? I currently work on a cardiac care unit. Thanks for your time!

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Specializes in critical care: cardiac cath lab/ER/ICU.

I am a cath lab RN and I do a lot of the device checks in our hospital when a patient comes in. Since we are rural and reps have to come out from a long way they were more than happy to train me - I have had extensive training on it, but not enough where I am comfortable changing settings unless I have the Biotronik/Medtronic, etc rep on the phone walking me through it after I have gone over the situation with them. If you want to take some classes and move over to devices I would suggest getting in contact with your local device reps. The cath/EP labs should have their info.

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