Vital Sign & I/O Assessment frequency

[MONITORHOSPITAL]

Hi All,

Im working in a hospital where they are trying to find a nursing care delivery model. Part of that, they are trying to redefine the time we check vital signs & I/O in different units in the hospital. this is our frequency:

ICU - V/S every hour & I/O every 2 hour

Telemetry - V/S every 6 hours & I/O every Shift or per MD order

Med surg - V/S every 8 hours & I/O every shift or per MD order

Can you share how it is done in your hospitals.....we are trying to look @ community standards & evidence based practices....

[rickard]

i work in a CVICU I&O is assessed at least hourly and VS are pt dependent if no vasoactive gtts then hourly is fine if on something and not titrating the q 30 mins maybe even q hour if very stable on the same rate but titrating gtts are recorded q 15 mins

[meandragonbrett]

ICU: q1h VS and I/O. q15 while titrating. q2h head-to-toe assessment

Stepdown/Tele is q4 vitals, qshift i/o. q4h assessment

Medsurg is q4 vitals qshift i/o. q8h assessment

[hajer]

Am Working In Ccu & We Are Checking Vs & I&o Every Hour Regardless Of The Patient Condition ..this Is Our Hospital Policy When The Patient Admited In Critical Care Unit..

[gilf7243]

At my hospital it works like this

ICU=vitals every 1 hour, I&0's every 8 hrs (6a,2p,10p)unless very critical then every 2 hrs.

Step-down ICU=vitals every 4 hrs, I&0's every 8 hrs (6a,2p,10p)

Tele=vitals every 8hrs unless they are on a drip or have been admitted less than 24hrs. (Drip like cardizem, heparin, nitro, dopamine, dobutamine, etc)

Med surg=vitals every shift or every 8 hours-not sure b/c I work the critical care block. I&0's every 8 hours (6a,2p,10p)

Hope this helps

gilf7243

[MatthewRN]

Record vitals and I&Os q hour on our nursing flowsheet. Document vitals in the electronic record q4 and I&O totals q8.

[cwhagat]

I recently transferred to a hospital, oncology/med floor. The nursing council as recent as August 2010 agreed to VS q12 (0600, 1800) for all pts on this floor unless otherwise ordered or PRN nursing discretion.

I don't care for this policy: when I come on flr at 2300 the "current" VS are outdated as far as I'm concerned, so I typically drag equipment and do own vitals when assessing pts. Really slows me down.

Hospital argument is based on the lack of evidence for qshift vitals.

[eliyel]

usually Q1 in the ICU. more frequently when on drips and unstable.

[cardiac.cure03]

i work in a CVICU I&O is assessed at least hourly and VS are pt dependent if no vasoactive gtts then hourly is fine if on something and not titrating the q 30 mins maybe even q hour if very stable on the same rate but titrating gtts are recorded q 15 mins

Yep, this is pretty much what we do in our CCU as well.

[npschuma]

ICU: VS Q1H, I&O Q1H, Assessment Q2H, Hemodynamics Q2H unless more frequent assessment needed

[Carrig RN]

ICU: Q1h VS and I&O if stable, if titrating drips VS with every change in drips (I usually write the pressure that made me make the change and then a f/u set to show the effect); Q4 body balance; Qshift head-to-toe assessment or with major change in pt condition.