manual BP's?

[Lola77]

Do you find manual BP's to be more accurate? I work on a floor where in the AM the nurses are responsible for getting 0800 vitals and we have 40+ patients and 1 or maybe 2 dinamaps that actually work. As you can imagine, we all fight for them and sometimes I can't get vitals until 0900 and the doctors are always ******. I am thinking about just bringing in a cuff and taking my BPs manually. Do you think there will be any issues with this?

[Caffeine_IV]

Our dinamaps are sometimes accurate and sometimes not. If they are getting readings outside of the patients usually parameters..I will do a manual BP.

We have a wall set that will attach to the patient's personal BP Cuff. I find that the most common problem is..the wrong size cuff.

[KBRN413]

Your floor should provide manual BP cuffs. We have them in every patient room! Ask your supervisor! :)

[Siddhartha]

i prefer manual over electronic any day. good idea to check with house policy. if you suspect errors in the floor stock equipment...make out a work slip and get the dang thing off the floor. make a stink and advocate for your patient. vital signs are called VITAL signs for a reason. not just to make more busy work for us.

[healthstar, BSN, RN]

In my clinicals, I take the BP manually and then with a dynamap just to compare them :).

I honestly trust myself more than the dynamap especially when it comes to giving meds.

[C-lion]

I start nursing school in two months. Can anyone recommend a good bp cuff to buy?

[pers]

In my experience, our machines tend to be pretty accurate provided the right size cuff is used. They are periodically calibrated by the facility, every few months someone takes care of it. If one is having issues we send it down and they fix it up. Our biggest problem with the machines isn't their accuracy but how freaking noisy they are! Sounds like someone is driving a garbage truck down the hall at night.

Personally, I tend to trust the machines over manuals because the number of people working the floor who can't take a manual bp is nothing short of astounding to me. I've noticed that when someone in isolation is getting manual readings, they have the most amazingly stable blood pressure! Regardless of what is going on with them or when it is taken, their bp never fluctuates more than 5 points in either direction.

[GuatericanNurse]

try doing a manual on a KICKING...SCREAMING 2 yr old. Being in Pediatrics is tough. almost ALL the kids here have automatic BP's checked. Also, we have little tiny 7 day old peanuts that need BP's checked. Very difficult to get it on the kiddos.....Some kids get their BPs checked on their legs so again, almost impossible to get a manual while placing the stethescope on their popliteal area.

[annieNC]

my 3 cents....dynamap is "usually" faster, but manual is more accurate, imo. the thing that gets me is........I dont see a lot of nurses using the appropiate manual cuff, period. for normal weight people, use the regular cuff. for obese people, use a thigh cuff. this is such a simple objective. a regular cuff on an obese patient can lead to a much higher bp reading than the real one.