Discharge Vital Signs

[blo0eyes]

Just curious to see what your facilities standards of practice and/or policy on discharge vital signs are. Is there any evidence based practice that you know of, or have you read any interesting research on the topic you might be able to share? At this point, my facility does discharge vital signs on any patient leaving the facility.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

do you mean what are the recommended parameters before discharge? Or do you mean is it a policy to document? Not sure. We expect nurses to document just prior to discharge and of course the parameters will depend upon the patient. Sorry I was not any help

[SolaireSolstice, BSN, RN]

We do discharge vital signs on patients who are leaving via contracted transportation to another facility, but no discharge vitals on a stable patient who has been deemed ready to leave to go home, unless there was some change right before discharge that would warrant it, in which case the discharge would probably be put on hold anyway.

[Noimanurse]

Takes a minute or 2 to get vitals, why not do them before discharge? Safety for the patient, the facility, and yourself takes only a couple of minutes.

[llltapp]

Sometimes wish I didn't do discharge vitals LOL JUST KIDDING

[UpinawayRN]

I always hated doing discharge vs on pts who came in for example, conjunctivitis or the like. Those minutes all add up, especially when your searching for a port b/p machine,thermometer, etc., on all the hall pts. And pt stays are being timed! Then there's the old, (crap)..Do you usually run high?...ok, let me go let the doctor know.. policy is policy..

[Altra, BSN, RN]

We have no specific policy requiring vitals before discharge, but expect that vitals will be taken at least with the frequency warranted by the ESI of the chief complaint. So for us, all those urgent care patient with conjunctivitis, ear pain, headache, s/p fall extremity pain, lacs, etc. do not get more than one set of vitals unless they've been in the ER longer than 8 hours.

[Flo., BSN, RN]

We don't do extra vitals on pts being dc'd. We do vitals q4-6hrs on the floor. If you are still there you get a set taken if not you don't.

[PAERRN20]

Ugh we do vitals q 1 hr on all patients AND at discharge...so that sore throat that has been here 1.5 hrs, by the end of the stay they have had their vitals taken 3 times! All for a sore throat!