danger to patients

[tt5555]

I am a heart monitor tech and I think it is disgusting to have monitor tech do unit secretarial work , it is not safe for the patients, if v tach happens and the tech has to take off an order the patient will suffer before anyone caught it. NEVER COMBINE CLERICAL AND TELEMETRY, HEAR THIS ALL HOSPITALS

I disagree taht monitor tech should do unit secretary work because

1 its too much to do both as secretarial work requires multiple tasks

2 it is NOT safe ifV TACH happens and the tech is doing another duty

[Mobeeb, RN]

Hmm....so....if the monitor is at the desk and the monitor tech is at the desk doing secretarial duties, what keeps the tech from noting that a lethal arrythmia alarm is sounding? And, who is at the desk most often, the nurse or the tech?

[Dorito, ASN, RN]

Our nurses monitor the telemetry and they have a small team. What's to stop them from saying they shouldnt have any patient care other than to watch telemetry. I don't think taking off orders or entering them is too difficult as long as you are there at the desk anyway. I agree with Mobeeb.

[jackson145]

Everyone in the healthcare field ends up doing some clerical work at some point. At my place, they are doing away with unit secretaries altogether.

[Laughs-a-lot, RN]

I work nights and we only have one secretary for the entire hospital, so we usually take off most of our own orders. We now have the computerized ekg machines which we had to be "trained" on before we were allowed to perform them on the floor. I had an order for a stat ekg on a pt experiencing chest pain and when I called the tele tech, she snapped at me about how I should do it, because a pt may go into v-fib while she is away from the monitors. #1 maybe my pt will go into v-fib while they're waiting. #2 Any nurse that would hear an alarm and not care enough a pt (whether theirs or not) to take 2 sec to look at the monitor and see if it is artifact or something serious really shouldn't be on a tele floor. I feel that as long as there is an understanding that the secretary has to take orders off also, and the nurses are willing to help out if there is an alarm, it should be ok. If the nurses are not willing to do their part, then I would bring this up at the next meeting, because things need to be rethought. P.S. I was trained on the new EKG machines today. So yes as an RN I can actually perform an EKG if my pt needs one.

[Katnip, RN]

The monitor has some sort of audible alarm on it to get your attention. I can't imagine people are sitting there for hours just staring at monitors. Doing some clerical work won't endanger the patient. If the alarm goes off, just stop what you're doing and do what you're supposed to do.

[casi, ASN, RN]

The unit I work has no monitor tech. They just try to keep a nurse at the desk at all times incase the monitors start sounding.

[whipping girl in 07, RN]

We don't have monitor techs at either of the hospitals I work at. They use pagers attached to the telemetry so if there's an alarm, they get paged. The hospital I used to work at, we had monitor techs, but they were in a room in the basement or something with all the tele monitors in the hospital and they'd call if there was something to see.

I did clinicals at a place where the US was also the monitor tech.

[ertravelrn]

The monitor tech where I work plays on the computer all night, so not sure why he can't do the orders also.

[Tait, MSN, RN]

We don't have monitor techs at either of the hospitals I work at. They use pagers attached to the telemetry so if there's an alarm, they get paged. The hospital I used to work at, we had monitor techs, but they were in a room in the basement or something with all the tele monitors in the hospital and they'd call if there was something to see.

This sounds really scary to me.

The first hospital I worked in we had a nurse with a low acuity team of four monitor telemetry at all times. If they had to leave the desk another nurse would cover the tele.

On my current cardiac floor we have a tele tech and US during the day, at night we have one US who also monitors tele. They all do an amazing job, and as a unit we all listen for alarms since we so frequently have them.

However every facility is different and I would suggest if you feel (this is to the OP) that patients aren't getting safe care, that you talk to your supervisor. :)

Tait