When You Fail Your Arrhythmia Test

Nurses Career Support

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  1. How soon should you be able to re-take an Arrhythmia Competency?

    • 2
      Immediately after failing the initial test (same day)
    • 3
      Next calendar day
    • 0
      After one calendar day
    • 2
      After 2 calendar days
    • 1
      One week

8 members have participated

Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping you can help me with a question we are having: "How long should a nurse wait to re-take a failed Arrhythmia exam/competency?"

At my facility, many nurses are required to take an annual Arrhythmia Competency. It's basically a rhythm strip interpretation, and includes some measurements. The strips are all high quality (crisp and high resolution) and the rhythms are all straightforward (textbook examples of dysrhythmias).

Currently if they fail the exam, they are allowed to return after 2 calendar days to re-test. It's essentially the exact same test, but the strips are shuffled in a different order. They are required to wait the 2 calendar days to help make sure that learning is being measured, and not memorization, because when the test is scored, an educator sits down with them immediately and remediates.

The managers are wanting to allow the nurses to re-test sooner. The reason is that nurses who have not established competency by their due date are taken off the schedule (they have one year's notice). That's a problem for the managers who are trying to staff their units.

I can't find anything in the literature per se about this, so I thought crowd sourcing nurses would be a great way to start. I really appreciate your feedback- thanks in advance, Nurse Beth

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Nurses know the annual competency is due and should, as a professional.. prepare for it. The exam should not be administered 2 days before any nurses's yearly due date. That gives plenty of time for remediation.

How many nurses are practicing in that facility unable to pass a basic arrhythmia test? Sounds like a bi- annual competency is in order.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

What is more worrisome and the question is HOW many nurses are failing to meet BASIC competency of cardiac arrhythmias?

ANY nurse working in the acute care setting should know the basics of EKG interpretation and lethal arrhythmias. :banghead:

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Seems to me these managers should be helping their staff prepare for the annual test? Post some common arrhythmias around the break room or nurses station..."can you identify this arrhythmia" posters for a few weeks prior to the annual testing.

The common basic "deadly" arrththmias are not that hard? Are they tested on more complex arrhythmias? Mobitz and Wenkebachs or right and left bundle branch blocks can be more confusing?

The way the testing is set up seems very fair to me.

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Hi everyone,

I'm hoping you can help me with a question we are having: "How long should a nurse wait to re-take a failed Arrhythmia exam/competency?"

At my facility, many nurses are required to take an annual Arrhythmia Competency. It's basically a rhythm strip interpretation, and includes some measurements. The strips are all high quality (crisp and high resolution) and the rhythms are all straightforward (textbook examples of dysrhythmias).

Currently if they fail the exam, they are allowed to return after 2 calendar days to re-test. It's essentially the exact same test, but the strips are shuffled in a different order. They are required to wait the 2 calendar days to help make sure that learning is being measured, and not memorization, because when the test is scored, an educator sits down with them immediately and remediates.

The managers are wanting to allow the nurses to re-test sooner. The reason is that nurses who have not established competency by their due date are taken off the schedule (they have one year's notice). That's a problem for the managers who are trying to staff their units.

I can't find anything in the literature per se about this, so I thought crowd sourcing nurses would be a great way to start. I really appreciate your feedback- thanks in advance, Nurse Beth

Beth-

Your question is impossible to answer. It is the wrong question. Let's assume that the test you are talking about is a good test, that does a reasonable job of assessing whether a nurse is competent to do the job for which they are hired.

From what you are saying, nurses who fail to demonstrate competence are given some education immediately. Management would like them to test the next day, when they are more likely to pass, and meet staffing needs. It seems like your thought is that those folks are simply employing short term memory to pass the test, and will actually have no mastery.

Most hospital tests are considered hoops to jump through. Whether it is about the mission statement, or how many seconds to wash hands, or what RACE stands for when a fire alarm goes off, most of us treat hospital tests as an an annoyance to be endured.

Unfortunately, sometimes hospitals test nurses on things that actually matter. Like rhythm recognition. In my experience, those tests are fairly simple and people who fail lack basic understanding of basic concepts.

Whether re-test time is 1 day, 2 days, or a week is irrelevant. A random pop quiz in the middle of the work day would be a far more accurate gauge of a nurse's understanding, but that will never happen. A better question is how to attract, train, and asses qualified nurses. And, as you know, that question is unlikely to be addressed in any meaningful way by management.

So- if the goal is to get as many nurses to pass this test as possible, then the current system of immediate remediation followed by a test the next day is a good strategy, On the other hand, if the goal is to have nurses who understand how the heart works, and how that is reflected by a rhythm strip, it will take a whole lot more though than simply extending the re-test time period.

Hospitals should hire actual educators. And, there should be an understanding, that for some jobs, some people won't make the cut.

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Specializes in Hematology-oncology.

Med-surg nurses at my employer are also required to take a yearly competency test. If we don't pass, then we are required to take an 8 hour telemetry class (offered by our education department) which awards CEs. Ironically, since no nurse wants to be forced to take an 8 hour class, we all study for the yearly exam, and very few nurses fail.

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