protocol for replacing tele leads ?

[melindasue22]

Hi. I am a biomed tech and wanted to know if anyone can point me to some resources for a protocol for telemetry lead replacement. Do you replace your every so often, or just when they are broke or uncleanable? I replaced leads on a unit the wasn't working and its good to go now but there weren't any new leads on the floor so I had to take some from my shop and it got me wondering. I wasn't sure if there is a best practice out there that says you replace them every quarter or anything like that. They are tough to clean the way I see it. There are disposable leads too to help with infection control purposes, does anyone use those? How do they work out for you?

[Julius Seizure]

If I'm understanding your question correctly, we use disposable leads and the stickers/leads are changed every 24 hours.

[brownbook]

I'm confused....too many different names for EKG or tele monitoring. Cables, tele leads, wires, electrodes, etc. Perhaps you could re- phrase your question? The white sticky patches, "electrodes",that go on the patients skin. The cables or wires or tele leads (and probably called other names for the same thing) that attach to the electrodes and plug into to the cardiac monitor? Exactly which are you referring to?

when I worked acute care I knew of no protocol to change patient electrodes. Just common sense, they got wet, became loose, etc, put on a new one. The cables, or wires, or tele leads we didn't change or even wipe down, (probably should have each shift). If they looked broken or the picture on the monitor wasn't good we might change out the cables as part of trouble shooting.

the monitor and cables, or wires, or tele leads, would be cleaned when that patient was discharged.

[melindasue22]

Thanks for the feedback. I was referring to the lead wires you can kinda see in the picture that attach to the telemetry pack. Our nurses wipe them off after every patient but never replace them if they are in bad shape. I see a lot with cracks around the grabber part and found one with some gooey red stuff on it that was like a melted gummy bear of something. They do a good job of trouble shooting issues initially but will just grab a new telemetry pack with differ wires already atttached all together instead of swap out for new lead wires because they don't keep any extra on the floor. We are a small hospital so I was trying to share with the floor manager any best practices that may be in place from other places instead of just saying "hey you need to stock wires on your floor." We are a small facility and in trying to have good customer service have always helped out but technically it should come from their pot of money for supplies not our pot of money for repairs.

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

Thanks for the feedback. I was referring to the lead wires you can kinda see in the picture that attach to the telemetry pack. Our nurses wipe them off after every patient but never replace them if they are in bad shape. I see a lot with cracks around the grabber part and found one with some gooey red stuff on it that was like a melted gummy bear of something. They do a good job of trouble shooting issues initially but will just grab a new telemetry pack with differ wires already atttached all together instead of swap out for new lead wires because they don't keep any extra on the floor. We are a small hospital so I was trying to share with the floor manager any best practices that may be in place from other places instead of just saying "hey you need to stock wires on your floor." We are a small facility and in trying to have good customer service have always helped out but technically it should come from their pot of money for supplies not our pot of money for repairs.

Best practice was inspecting the leads any time a monitor was placed, expecting to have new ones stocked , and not giving a rat's patooti whose budget it came out of.