temporal artery thermometers

adrienurse, LPN · Oct 29, 2006

They will read higher because apparently they're measuring an area that reads warmer. You have to get used to the fact that a normal temp for them can be 38 degrees without being considered a fever.

fetch33 · Oct 29, 2006

We've had them for nearly a year. I guess they are OK for normal temps. We have found them to be very inaccurate with higher temps though. We have had them register 107 degrees before! Of course the patient did have an oral temp of 103 or 104. Also don't like the fact that someone could walk off with one. They don't have to be put in a cradle to be reset like our old oral thermometers.

miko014 · Oct 30, 2006

We had them and got rid of them. Went back to oral (never had tympanic). It's easier to use, I think, but, as someone already said, too sensitive to user technique. I read that they are supposed to be equivalent to a core temp, which would be a bit higher, but we got a lot of similar readings as we would with oral (lots of 97s). I would wonder, though, when I had a line of pts and they were all 97.2 degrees...I guess I don't really know how accurate they are.