How to perform CPR on a hospital bed?

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I'm a new grad who has been working on a tele floor for 6 months and I love it. This is something that I've been wondering about and have been kind of embarrassed to ask. How do you go about performing CPR when the patient is on a squishy hospital bed? I know you use the CPR button on the bed to make it flat and you have to put the hard board under the patient, but how do you do so in order not to waste precious seconds? Do you make the bed flat and start CPR while someone runs and gets the board (and the crash cart, etc.) or is it useless to start CPR until the board is placed because the bed is too soft? I guess I'm looking for the proper "steps" (still being a task oriented new grad and all!). Any other possible issues I may run into? I've never done CPR but I want to make sure I'll be effective if I do, since CPR classes seem to assume you're a first responder on a scene, not a nurse who heard the monitor go off. Thanks!

Specializes in ICU.
I heard a story yesterday at work where the PA ran to a code on a med surg floor, upon arrival there were 5 nurses standing at the bed doing nothing! He started compressions and gave instructions on placing the Zoll while the bedside nurses where paralyzed in shock? And unable to perform CPR. I believe heads are going to roll. The pt was 50's and not a DNR.

I saw stuff like that multiple times when I worked at a rural hospital without a code team. Anyone from ICU that was free got to run to the codes. We had a code in Peds once where most of the nurses were just standing in the room crying. There were like 10 people in the room and only one of them was doing anything at all. Really. I would have fired every last one of them if I was their manager and made sure they got reported to the BON. It made me so furious that I almost couldn't see straight.

Yep, OP - just do something. Something is better than nothing. Even if the CPR button doesn't work and you don't have a backboard, any compression is better than no compression.

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