Tele transports from the ER

Check with your hospital's policies and procedures. Usually a tele patient needs to be transported by someone ACLS certified.

In our ER a Tele pt can be transferred to tele by any license (LVN, RN) with monitor...A ICU pt must go with a RN.

this is a sore subject in our ER. Tele patients must be transported from the ER to the unit of choice (either ICU, CCU or PCU) by an ACLS RN.

BUT if it is a patient being transported from CCU/ICU to our Progressive Care Unit (tele unit) then they can be transported by our transporters, without an RN. go figure.. makes no sense.

Medics or CNAs can transport tele patients to any unit other than critical care. A RN or LPN must transport to the critical care areas.

To go to a tele floor has to have someone ACLS certified on a monitor. CCU I am pretty sure has to have an RN plus someone else and one has to be ACLS certified.

It all sounds good with the monitors and ACLS...But then who takes them (tele) to radiology etc.

If they have to be on a monitor for radiology then someone ACLS goes with them. Some of our pt's the docs will say they don't need to be on the monitor to go to radiology.

This is a gray area in our ER. If they are unstable, they get portables only. If they HAVE to go to radiology, CT, or anywhere out of the department, and they have to stay on the monitor, a nurse or paramedic has to go and stay with them.

Where it gets sticky is there is no black and white policy. We often send R/O CVAs with stable vitals to CT without a nurse. CT is next to the ER and they are back in 10 minutes. TECHNICALLY, they could crash in CT. But, it's pretty much up to the nurse to decide if they are stable enough to go alone. Call it wrong...bad.

Our current "policy" states the a stable monitored patient can be transported by a monitor/acls trained tech (CNA II) to PCU and radiology, ICU/CCU patients must have an RN and we prefer that 2 people go on critical care transports.