Incompetent tele tech..vent

this is a very important job for the reasons that you gave...nurses rely on these techs to be another set of eyes if if he cannot do his job write it up..if enough nurses complain then the ptb will wake up and do something

there is nothing worse than someone who thinks he is knowledgeable and isn't

he's yelled "Pt so and so is in V-tach!!" and everyone runs down there and the pt is sitting on the side of bed, looking at us like we're all on crack.

I would hate to rely on tele techs! That unit (all units who utilize these people) seems funny to me..some man sitting in a 'control-room' occaisionally yelling/calling out rhythm changes...like some panic-button-pushin fear monger. "Hey ! v-tach!" and people go running like pavlov's nurses...panting and keyed-up...

NO way. I beleive that set-up would 'promote' the dis-use/(non-use?) of tele skills by the nurses (lazier nurse?). Most tele systems have alarms that work (i'm guessing) just as well.

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That is a scary problem. I would say 1) talk to your manager 2) document his mistakes and his excuses via incident reports. When you're busy with several patients, you can't rely on alarms without a warm body actually monitoring the rhythm, unless you're in an ICU setting where someone is usually within sight of the monitor most of the time. Otherwise, there's no point in using telemetry at all. Besides, many significant (though not lethal) rhythm changes may not trigger the alarms.2 things that look EXACTLY like v-tach: brushing teeth - shaking an inhaler:chuckle

NO way. I beleive that set-up would 'promote' the dis-use/(non-use?) of tele skills by the nurses (lazier nurse?). Most tele systems have alarms that work (i'm guessing) just as well.

It's not a fact of laziness, just a fact that when you have a team of 8-9 patients with an LPN, it's hard to just sit up at the nurses station and watch the tele monitors for the whole shift. As pricklypear said, the alarms don't always go off for certain rhythms. I noticed on your profile that you work an ICU/CCU unit, where you probably have to monitor your own 1-2 patients per shift. It's like that in our cardiac ICU as well.

NO way. I beleive that set-up would 'promote' the dis-use/(non-use?) of tele skills by the nurses (lazier nurse?). Most tele systems have alarms that work (i'm guessing) just as well.

It's not a fact of laziness, just a fact that when you have a team of 8-9 patients with an LPN, it's hard to just sit up at the nurses station and watch the tele monitors for the whole shift. As pricklypear said, the alarms don't always go off for certain rhythms. I noticed on your profile that you work an ICU/CCU unit, where you probably have to monitor your own 1-2 patients per shift. It's like that in our cardiac ICU as well.

Point taken. My negative feelings toward tele-techs are probably a result of my never having worked with them.

Anyway, about those alarms...

The alarms on most(all?) tele systems are usually a little too-sensitive rather than not-sensitive-enough. So, what happens is the alarm will ring for anything vaguely(sp?) resembling an abnormal rhythm. This may be a problem for some (who hate the sound of those wretched bongs!), but these machines wont let an abnormal rhythm be traced and NOT alarm. (which means if there's a rhythm issue, the machine will inform you...regardless of a warm body planted in front of it)

The benfit is that IF it's an alarm that needs addressed(sp?), the nurses know right away, can determine the rhythm at a glance, and not be freaked-out unneccesarily(sp?) by someone calling on a panic bat-phone "hey! V-tach!!".

The tele/imcu floors at my place of employement are usually busy and there's always someone there to glance at the tele when an alarm is bonging. (nurses station is never empty)..perhaps this is a luxury. This also forces the nurses to (hopefully) keep their tele skills sharp.

I understand your (and the other poster's) very valid points defending tele-techs. I still wouldn't want to have to rely on them...

I work on a surgical cardiac floor at a fairly large hospital, and I just had a topic I wanted to throw out there for any opinions. On our floor (37 bed unit) we have specific people (tele tech's) whose only job is to monitor the patients on the floor and patients in other various areas of the hospital on off-site tele. I for the most part, I trust every tele tech on the unit, except for one individual who is consistantly wrong in his interpretations of rhythms. We had a patient who was having R on T for an ENTIRE 8 HOUR SHIFT and this guy totally missed it, not to mention the numerous times that's he's yelled "Pt so and so is in V-tach!!" and everyone runs down there and the pt is sitting on the side of bed, looking at us like we're all on crack. We have several new grads on our unit who aren't very good yet at reading the tele strips and are somewhat dependent on the tele techs to get acurate info on what their patients are doing. Several complaints and write up's have been made about this guy and yet nothing gets done! It's very frustrating and annoying to the nursing staff as well as the other tele techs who are constantly having to pick up his slack and answer to the Doc's when they start complaining about why this rhythm wasn't caught, etc. Anywho..just my vent. Feel free to comment!

That guy sounds like a total retard! I'm a monitor tech myself and I would never miss a dangerous R-on-T rhythm....Atleast not for freaking 8 straight hours! AND unlike other lazy ass techs, I check up on the pt's if I see something funny on the monitor (fix leads and change batteries too). Heck, I've participated in code blues AND I personally do the EKG's. Gee, must be the LVN side of me too.

I work on a surgical cardiac floor at a fairly large hospital, and I just had a topic I wanted to throw out there for any opinions. On our floor (37 bed unit) we have specific people (tele tech's) whose only job is to monitor the patients on the floor and patients in other various areas of the hospital on off-site tele. I for the most part, I trust every tele tech on the unit, except for one individual who is consistantly wrong in his interpretations of rhythms. We had a patient who was having R on T for an ENTIRE 8 HOUR SHIFT and this guy totally missed it, not to mention the numerous times that's he's yelled "Pt so and so is in V-tach!!" and everyone runs down there and the pt is sitting on the side of bed, looking at us like we're all on crack. We have several new grads on our unit who aren't very good yet at reading the tele strips and are somewhat dependent on the tele techs to get acurate info on what their patients are doing. Several complaints and write up's have been made about this guy and yet nothing gets done! It's very frustrating and annoying to the nursing staff as well as the other tele techs who are constantly having to pick up his slack and answer to the Doc's when they start complaining about why this rhythm wasn't caught, etc. Anywho..just my vent. Feel free to comment!

Hopefully more concrete action is being taken behind the scenes by your manager. Sometimes it is difficult to get rid of someone, usually other methods have to be tried first (like counselling, sending back to courses, going through more orientation...etc.) It seems there is always that person at the bottom of the class who ends up in the inappropriat e place (LIKE WHERE WE ARE!!!! Vent away!