• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

Cross-train employees to read monitors

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, April 23, 2004

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education!

In your organization, who watches rhythm monitors when nurses are away from the station? If monitor techs are scarce at your facility, consider cross-training unit aides and secretaries to do the job. Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, in Camden, New Jersey, employs designated monitor techs, but they also educate their ancillary staff to read the monitors. Trainees participate in a two-week program composed of didactic and clinical sessions. During the clinical phase, each trainee shadows a monitor tech. After training, participants are required to pass a written test with a score of at  least 80 percent, made up of 25 multiple choice questions and 25 rhythm strip identifications. Learners are also required to score 100 percent on an oral test, demonstrating monitor use and their response to simulated rhythm changes. For example, trainees must use the "Bat phone" for emergencies, or the regular phone for less urgent situations. Trainers conduct the written and oral competency test annually. Try this type of program at your organization to support nurses and ensure quality patient care.

Editor's note: Reprinted with permission from AnneMarie Palatnik, MSN, APN, BC, Interim Director of Education and Research, Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center, Camden, NJ. Do you have a creative, effective training program that you'd like to share with your colleagues? Send it to us for possible publication in an upcoming issue of HCTW! Our contact information is below.

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education!

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive