firefighterjsh

Just a couple of questions about telemetry monitoring. Just a little background, our telemetry monitoring unit consists of two monitor technicians. One MT watches the actual telemetry unit, a cardiac observation unit, and a progressive care unit (ICU Step-down). The first tech can watch up to 65 patients on their side alone at full capacity. The second MT watches 64 remote telemetry patients plus an 11 bed pre-admissions unit, 75 at full capacity. Our monitoring unit usually watches 105 to 140 patients at full capacity which has happened but not often between two techs. Our unit includes a bathroom, microwave, refrigerator, so we literally do not leave the room for anything, which includes breaks. We eat at our workstation (12-hour shifts). We do take occasional mental health breaks or a walk but those are short because we must leave a single monitor tech to all the patients. We monitor and complete all strips for all patients monitored. Nurses come in or call in once a shift to get a rate and rhythm for their documentation. We do everything else, from posting routine and event strips. We do not have anyone that checks behind us, except for some of the cardiologist that prefer to look at the strips themselves. Our monitors are the only monitors, except the PCU unit has a remote monitor for viewing only, and the pre-admissions unit has a monitor, but the nurses in the PA unit are not ACLS or know how to read them. So, telemetry nurses are required to come into the telemetry room to get their readings, but all the other units call us to get readings. We must deal with multiple calls from nurses getting their reports, doctors, we have walkie talkies that most of the nursing units use, so we are also constantly being called on those, plus text messaging from the nurses' phones. Our director supports getting us a 3rd monitor tech hired to split the workload and allow us real breaks, but keeps getting turned down from higher ups. Most of the posts I've seen in the past are old, but I'm curious if there are any regulations yet that I can't find on the patient to MT ratios to further support it? We use the GE monitoring system (which I personally feel is outdated), and our PCU unit uses hardwired monitors at the bedside. Most of these patients are not required to be on constant SPO2 monitoring, but they will temporarily place them on the patients when completing vitals, then remove them. This causes the monitors to read SPO2 Probe off constantly. We can not centrally silence these alarms, so they are always alarming. It causes severe alarm fatigue, and causes us to miss actual alarms that are important. Does anybody have any policies on the use of the SPO2 probes or recommendations on how to silence them? We were told that they could be silenced from the bedside monitor, but the nurses don't know how to operate them except for getting the reading off the display screen. The third question is, our hospital is trying to move toward paperless. Does anyone have any experiences with the GE system some how integrating with Meditech? I've been told it can't be done. This is another reason I would rather see another system used. Our director also supports this, but that route is expensive and probably will never be approved. Sorry for making this so long but figured I'd try to answer all questions the first go-round.