nihon kohden telemetry monitor a good idea??

[Pandalove07]

I work as an RN on a step-down unit with sometimes confused and critical patients who should be in ICU but the ICU is full so they have to stay on the floor. Right now, we have bedside monitoring and centeral monitoring at the nursing station. Myself and a lot of the other nurses I work with rely on looking at the bedside monitor screen, which is 12" across, to know the pt's heart rate and rhythm and pulse ox with the wave showing at all times. It's not uncommon to have Cardizem, nitro, or other cardiac drips on the floor. When we are pushing IV heart meds, we are staring at the monitor while we are in the room. During a rapid or code, everyone is watching the pt and the monitor. But now the hospital wants to take out all the monitors in the rooms and put each patient on a telepack. The telepack with show the heart rhythm on a little 3" screen and a pulse ox but no wave so you don't know if it's accurate or not.

Im just really nervous about not seeing my pt on the bedside monitor and having to look at the little telepack. And the telepack has so many buttons to change settings and look at past heart rates and vitals and I'm wondered about my pts accidentally hitting those buttons or my confused pts really messing with the telepack. And I'm worried about when a rapid happens, is everyone going to be fighting to see the little monitor attached to this short cord on the pt?

Does anyone else use the nihon kohden telemetry monitor? Is it not going to be as bad as I think it will be? What's your experiences? Thanks for taking the time to read this :)

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

Your facility is forcing you to take ICU patients, and downgrading monitor capabilities?

I would approach management/ administration on the rationale and effectiveness behind this move. Everything is about money, however I can't see the connection, unless the equipment is rented. Also confer with nursing education.

If a rapid response is called, use the portable cardiac monitor. There should be a lock out on the telepack to prevent a patient from interfering with any settings.

Best of luck.

[MunoRN, RN]

The NK Lifescope telemetry monitors do actually have an SpO2 waveform, you can get ride of it and replace it with another wave (I think you can choose three different waves, whatever waves you want) but you can choose to always be able to see the SpO2 waveform on the pocket device.

It would be weird not have the box also paired to a bedside monitor, but certainly not impossible, particularly since you should have transport monitors readily available which can be paired very quickly to the box in the case of an emergency.

Every place is different, but what you describe is pretty typical steop-down/progressive care types of patients; diltiazem, nitro, as well as amiodarone, non-titrated milrinone, etc. You can't hook up pressure cables to a tele box, so if you have patients with transduced CVPs, PA catheters etc then you would definitely need hardwired bedside monitors.