So we've all been there: You're getting report and the nurse tells you, "Oh I know her blood pressure is 200/110, that's her baseline." What?!?!?!?
Some of my favorites:
"Baseline heart rate stable in the 140's." Uh, yeah...stable...
"Baseline blood sugar is usually in the 50's so don't be alarmed." :nuke:
"Chest tube output is around 150/hour but that's around where it's been so I haven't called anyone." :smackingf
(Report being called from the OR) "Case was uneventful, she is coming up open-chested." That sounds like an event to me! LOL! I guess open chests are pretty typical in the OR, though!
What is the craziest "BASELINE" you've ever been given in report?
Specializes in Telemetry, IMCU, s/p Open Heart surgery.
We had a guy in VTACH, rate 170s, sitting up in bed talking to us. vital signs otherwise stable, patient had no complaints... I think 5 nurses running in to check on him all at once kind of freaked him out, but he was OK! His AICD finally fired when his HR reached 185!
Diabetic pt c/o feeling like her blood sugar is low. Check it and it's in the 120s. She's like, "Oh well that's low for me. I'm usually in the 400-500s at home."
LOL -- I think she might have knowledge deficit of the Diseases process.
Diabetic pt c/o feeling like her blood sugar is low. Check it and it's in the 120s. She's like, "Oh well that's low for me. I'm usually in the 400-500s at home."
I took care of her tonight!
I was giving report to the NOC shift and stated MrsX BS was 450 tonight, the NOC shift nurse responded, did you notify MD? Nope, she lives there.
The orders are not to notify MD untill she hits 600:eek:
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
i had a va ecmo with a baseline hr of asystole. that was weird.
asystolic doesn't bother me that much -- i've seen people recover from that. had a lady who was asystolic for six months on bivads. she got a transplant and i ran into her in the grocery store last month. but the patient on ecmo who was apneic -- that bothered me!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
back when i was brand new to ccu, had a patient come in to r/o an mi. i got him settled, did the usual labs, assessments, etc. his blood gases came back with a co2 of 82. what?! i called the doctor immediately, who said "oh, yeah, that's his baseline." turns out the patient had lou gehrig's disease, and that was his baseline. his orders (when i finally got them) said "no intubation; no abgs". still, it was fun to pass that abg result to my charge nurse with a straight face . . . .
My 5 year old is vent dependent. His "normal" VS are HR 40-60, temp 91-92 F rectally, B/P 80/50, O2 sats 95% on 5LPM, CO2 66. I have a laminated index card with all this info that I immediately hand to the triage nurse whenever we go to the hospital so they don't freak out.
We had a pt one weekend who kept going into a third degree block with a ventricular rate in the teens every time he fell asleep. It was kinda fun freaking out the high-strung day nurse with that one...sometimes I'm evil that way.
Had a pt with an AICD that kept having 30-50 beat runs of V-tach. I never did find out how high she was set, as it never fired.
I work oncology and we regularly get pts with WBCs over 100 and platelets less than 20. That took some getting used to, as did the massive doses of narcs some of them are on. Oxy IR 100 mg q4 plus Fentanyl patch of 150 mcg plus morphine 8 mg IV for breakthru pain...and they're totally alert.
young anorexic with HR 20-30s vitals otherwise stable, she was out of bed walking/talking. got downgraded to the floor that way. It completely freaked me out!
Or the young anorexic that I had was HR 30=s-40's, K 1.3 went into V-tach, pulled out her lines cause she didn't want to get better....
had a lady that was in her mid 70s come in that had a rare hemoglobin disorder since birth. She said when she was born they thought she was a blue baby until she started crying. Said she had been part of a bunch of studies to figure out how she was alive and why she was not effected by her SpO2 being in the mid 20 range..... She was like this her whole life, blue skin and all..... very strange... anesthesia was a little bit worried about it but she made it through surgery just fine. Never had a sat above 30%.
What?!?!?!? 
BTW this was on a general med/surg floor.
DuluthMike
164 Posts
I had a VA ECMO with a baseline HR of asystole. That was weird.