Door to EKG times

[robinzkj]

Our door to EKG times are not good. They should be 10 mintues or less. I have to do a PI project to help us decrease our times. Right now when a patient arrives to the ED, they stop at registration to give name, dob and complaint. If they state chest pain, the registration person calls the charge nurse (who has a full assignment) and the person is brought straight back and EKG and triage is done at bedside. If no open rooms, the EKG is done in one of the triage rooms. However, we run into situations where registration is not telling us the complaint, the triage nurse may have the patient in the triage room when the patient adds on a complaint of chest pain to their original complaint and now we are past the 10 minutes, and other issues.

What is your process to get EKGs done quickly? The only thing I can come up with is doing EKGs in triage and not having the patient stop at registration first.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

[Sassy5d]

Is registration actually checking them in? How do you know new Pts have arrived?

If someone adds chest pain on later, document that Pts chief complaint was xyz and pt is now stating chest pain and document what they say.

Ekgs are done in triage room within 10 of registration if rooms are not open and EKG is shown to a doc right away. If I have to put someone back in waiting room I document per assessment and md EKG review.

Our registration people know our 10 min rule. Perhaps your admins can talk to their Damon's to remind/review with their staff. Teamwork

[ImKosher]

Our facility has a "First Nurse" to just eye ball the pt. They ask about the complaint and then bring them back to triage. Registration gets the pt after a nurse has done a quick assess. If your pt is having chest pain the nurse will and then bring them straight back to a room with an EKG tech. Very efficient and effective.

[SweetCorn]

In our department, it's registration's job to notify the triage or charge nurse when a patient is of high acuity, such as a chest pain patient. These patients are brought back immediately with triage done at bedside while the patient is changed, EKG'd, blood drawn, and put onto the monitor, etc.

It does indeed put a high level of responsibility onto our registration folks, but since we are a small department, it seems to have worked so far. I imagine with a higher volume of patients this method might not be sufficient.