Endoscopy patients with Pacemakers/AICD

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Specializes in PACU, NICU.

i am a pacu manager taking the endoscopy unit under my supervision.

can anyone share with me policy on patients with pacemakers &/or aicds? we seem to being running into this more frequently with the gastro md wanting to use cautery & have the nurses place a magnet over the device.

problem: we are a small community hospital with no ep lab on site, the device reps are not being called to come in and interrogate the devices after the procedure!! i have great concerns for the safety of the patients once dischaged ~ we have no way of knowing if the device is functional!

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Specializes in Med-Surg,Critical Care, Radiology,GI.

Go online to the ASGE website. American Society of Gastrenterology, they have a position paper on that subject. Basically, it is not recommended any further to turn off or manipulate the pacer settings with a magnet during endoscopy. 1. Cautery is never a known entity and if a pacer is turned off and something happens to the patient cardiac wise during the procedure and no cautery was used, the attempt to prevent a patient related incident turned into a patient related incident. the recc. are that cautery is safe as long as the cautery is 10 inches from the pacer and that the ground is placed in such a way(hip) that there is no arc across the pacer. Go to the website for further info.

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Specializes in PACU, NICU.

:typingthanks so much for the information

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