quickcath

Our policy states we need to get an EKG within 10 minutes of arrival to ED if a pt presents with CP or symptoms that could be cardiac. We do a fantastic job of getting the EKG completed, however, my dilemma is... once the EKG is completed what do we do with it, the machine interpretation may say NSR, however there may be some ST changes the machine does not pick up, the physicians are getting bombarded with EKGs and feel and overwhelming sense of responsibility, should we leave it up to the RN in triage to determine what warrents a physician glance or should we continue to bombard the physician. If anyone has a happy medium solution to this please let me know ASAP, thanks.

I would definately send letters to the individual, ED director, medical director and the Admin. staff in charge of nursing, i.e. VP of nursing, director of patient services and the hospital president. It is so often that we as nurses hear so much negative, so when someone wants to thank someone it should get deserved recognition.

Hello all, We are going for chest pain center accreditation and recently the local ems squads have implemented prehospital EKG transmission via fax. This is a great way to get the STEMIs to the cath lab quickly. However, there is no patient identifier on the EKG, therefore, there is no way we can include this EKG in the chart. Any suggestions?