Rehab. nurses please. Need help.

VickyRN, MSN, DNP, RN · Jan 30, 2009

I've only seen one rehab facility (an inpatient Rehabilitation Center within an enormous teaching facility). The General Rehab Unit is mainly a stroke unit, but also has amputees, post-ops, people who are debilitated following a long hospital stay, etc. There is also a lock-down Brain Injury Rehab Unit, a Spinal Cord Rehab Unit, and a Pediatric Rehabilitation Unit. Telemetry is rarely, if ever, used. If patients are that sick, they are considered medically unstable and shipped back up to the floor. Fairly often, however, patients are on continuous pulse oximetry. Hope this helps :)

jam2007 · Jan 31, 2009

I worked on a cardiopulmonary floor at a rehab with tele patients s/p CABG, cardiac caths, etc. Maybe it depends on the facility.

glasgow3 · Jan 31, 2009

As a general rule inpatient rehabilitation hospitals/units do not have telemetry. But, there're certainly exceptions to be found.

For the most part inpatient rehabs need medically stable folks....the focus is on the therapy disciplines. ( Yea yea I know it's a team but without a genuine need for physical and occupational therapy, 99.9999999% would never qualify to be admitted) Further, CMS rules tend to reduce cardiac admissions (as well as those for pain, and single joint replacement).

On the other hand, rehab centers may need to increase the medical side of things...competition often dictates that. And some large, rehabilitation centers/hospitals have all kinds of units/service lines/programs/specialities.