Patient population is the patients throughout the hospital being monitored by a centralized telemetry station on a 40 bed telemetry unit. Is it better for the patients if each unit has monitors where they can individually be monitored by the staff nurses or do we continue to monitor in one centralized location for the whole hospital where the nurses have to go to see what their patients are doing on the monitor? Currently each unit has an emergency phone that is called by the centralized monitoring station when and if the patient has any issues. Would it be better for the patients if the unit caring for them had monitors on the unit to check their patient immediately rather than taking the extra step of the phone call? At times this step can be life threatening to a patient if they have an arrhythmia and the monitoring staff is unable to reach the nurse caring for the patients in a timely manner to go and assess the patients. If there were monitors that alerted the staff on the units than would there be a faster response to the patients? Not only that but centralized monitoring techs may get alarm fatigue and not hear an important alarm. Would it be better for two places to get this alarm?
P:Patients needing telemetry monitoring throughout the hospital.
I:Potential risk for negative patient outcomes related to not being able to contact nurse in a timely manner for patients on outlying areas or centralized monitor techs becoming alarm fatigued and missing an important change in rhythm.
C:Do we place monitoring stations on each unit or remain centralized?
O:Quicker recognition and treatment of patients if monitoring station is on each unit as well as centralized.
T:unknown
PICO(T)
References:
Sonoma State University, 2014. N 312C Baccalaureate Perspectives Safety and Quality in Health Care. What is a PICOT Question? Retrieved from: http://www.sonoma.edu/users/k/koshar/n312c/PICOT%20Samples.html
· Monitor Alarm Fatigue Standardizing Use of Physiological Monitors and Decreasing Nuisance Alarms.htm(50.68 KB)