telemetry monitoring ratio

[choirgurl67]

i work in on a cardiac telemetry floor while i am in school. I am a monitor tech that watches not only our twenty patients but also 4 other floors. At times we have been up to more than 60 patients on telemetry for one monitor tech to watch...wow. I want to know if there are any laws about how many patients one person can watch. help..thanks

[krazy_coconuts]

I work as a CNA/tele tech on a 46 bed tele unit. We also monitor another floor (that only has a few of their pts on tele), so we end up usually monitoring 50-70 pts. The rule on our floor is there must ALWAYS be two tele techs unless, on the very very rare occasion (like Christmas day), we have less than 30 pts on tele. If for some reason there is only one available tele tech on shift they will pull a RN to work on tele. I'm really surprised that more units don't have this rule ... that would scare me to death as a nurse! Too many things can and do happen.

[SarasotaRN2b]

I work as a CMT/HUC and in the beginning I found it very unsettling...it was sensory overload at times. I'm six months in now and feel much more comfortable. On the tele floor we monitor between 20 and 24, while when we are assigned to the remote tele room it can be up to 48, but usually 35 is the max. Usually the majority on remote tele are sinus rhythm, with a few that may require more attention. You become more intuned and able to see what is artifact or a loss lead and what is really urgent. Again, this comes with time.

Kris