StatViews- ekg pagers

[TLC_RN_BSN]

Does your facility utilize the StatView Pagers...or something similar??

They are pagers that the heart monitor alarms are sent to....each nurse has one.

What is your opinion of them? How has your unit instituted them?

We've had them over a year. We do not like them. They eliminated our monitor tech at the monitors...and now all alarms, get sent to our statview. They've become such a nuisance...many nurses don't pay attention to it after awhile.

We have NO Bedside monitors. Carry 4-7 patients...typical 5-6 on days, 6-7 on nights. Lots of artifact comes through...and lots of false V-tach.

If we get a V-tach come through, we go check the patient, but have no clue if he is still in V-tach when we get there, because no one is at the monitor, and the statview only gives a glimpse of the alarm...no real time rhythm tracking.

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

TLC

[Spacklehead, MSN, NP]

When I was working on a tele. unit about 7-8 years ago, we just started using pagers that sound similar to yours. We hated them! Like you said, they would alarm for every little thing, which would mean that about every 5 min, you would have to stop what you were doing to check your patient. Our unit got them for just the reason you stated - to get rid of our monitor techs. I thought that it was a horrible idea - I felt that our techs were such an asset to us! I left that hospital shortly after we started using the pagers, so I don't know how things ever turned out with them.

[can25rn]

We also use them at my facilty and do not like them for the many reasons that have been listed. We have never had monitor techs and it has been suggested but we have been told that it is too expensive. We used to have pagers that showed the actual rhythm on them which was much easier and more user friendly b/c we could see what the monitor was showing. We were told that it was a liability issue and had to switch to pagers that make us go to the monitor/pt and check. It takes up time and as nurses we don't have alot of time to waste. :wink2:

[anne07]

I've used the pagers when I worked at another hospital, and (big suprise) we hated them too. The pagers went off for just about everything, and rarely was there a real problem with the patient. Unfortunately, most people just started ignorning the pagers, silencing them without looking at the page. Not good practice, I know, but when you've got 5 patients in your pager (unless you were charge, then you had the whole floor on your pager) and the thing goes off everytime one of them scratches their chest or something, it gets kind of irritating after a while. We did not have monitor techs there, but we did have a central monitor at the front desk, so someone was usually able to look at the rhythms at all times.

The hospital where I work now has monitor techs who monitor the patients' rhythms and post anything abnormal on the chart. Sometimes I think we're too dependent on them though. Guess nothing is perfect...

[NurseNewbie]

I hate the statview pagers...our telemetry monitors are terrible they alarm off false rhythms many of the times. Such ringing off V-tach or asystole when the patient is in a textbook sinus rhythm. I work a lot of night shifts and the worst is when they alarm off while you are doing your hourly checks on patients while they are sleeping.....At times I've felt the urge to toss them out the window. I can see the need for them on our unit (60 beds) but they cry wolf too many times a nite that some are not as vigilent as others when they do beep off. Its kind of like, pt rings off asystole, almost everyone runs to check the monitor first before the patient to verify. Some work needs to be done on these devices.