How often do you do vitals and I&Os?

[blondy2061h]

I'm just curious how this varies from hospital to hospital and by specialty.

[Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP]

q = each....so q shift means every shift :)

I&O = intake and output

[talaxandra]

Multi-specialty medical unit

Our patient population is so varied that there's no commonality at all - some have 2/24 vitals their entire admission (lignocaine infusions); while stable patients waiting LLC placement might be on 2nd daily.

That said, the default for most patients is QID, trending down to TDS when settled and then BD if stable.

Unless patients are acutely/seriously unwell, neurologically compromised, or new admissions they're checked overnight but not woken for obs.

Most of our patients aren't on fluid balance charts. Those that are not catheterised are charted when they void, eat and drink; all IV pumps are cleared 6/24 and the totals recorded; stable patients have their IDCs emptied 6/24, while those with poor outputs are checked 2-4/24.

Transplants have everything recorded hourly for the first two days then only urine output (if stable) for a day, which they drops to 2-4/24 as long as they're catheterised.

[lpnflorida, LPN]

Q as Elvish stated is each or every still means the same thing. You will be memorizing many abbreviations and latin roots ,,,,, I hated that. as it was pure memorization. The bright side, once you learn them you will be able to pick apart unfamiliar medical terms and know what they are.. Good luck in school by the way.

[ANH_RN]

Working nights 7-7 I do them during initial assessment and try to get another set in before midnight. If the patient has a lot of issues or what have you I do them again at 4 am. Some people that I work with only do theirs during the initial assessment and that's it, which I always found surprising.

[nrsang97, BSN, RN]

I work neurosurg ICU so we do Neuro checks,VS,q1h. I&O is recorded q1h, but sometimes we have orders for q4 hour boluses or q8h boluses for either CVP or I&O or both on our SAH/vasospasam patients. We have art lines or cuffs timed to the hour. We will monitor VS more frequently if needed. Our VS download into the computer so we change view from 1hour to say 5 minutes and all VS are there. We take temps q4h.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

I work neurosurg ICU so we do Neuro checks,VS,q1h. I&O is recorded q1h, but sometimes we have orders for q4 hour boluses or q8h boluses for either CVP or I&O or both on our SAH/vasospasam patients. We have art lines or cuffs timed to the hour. We will monitor VS more frequently if needed. Our VS download into the computer so we change view from 1hour to say 5 minutes and all VS are there. We take temps q4h.

Oh how I wish our monitors were connected to our EMR. If we have a patient getting q15min vitals we're typing in vitals q15min.

[ZooMommyRN, ADN, RN]

ICU is Q2H vitals (the patients are on constant monitors programed to take bp at the proper intervals which transfers straight to our flow sheet charting with one click of the mouse we just have to run in and do a quick temp with the temporal thermometers which are awesome to finally have lol) with assesment Q4H, stepdown is Q4 vitals with Q4 assessment, Med/Surg floor is Q4H vitals, assessment per shift and I&O's are in the computer as Q8H but you still tally for the whole shift so the next shift can start at 0