Overuse of telemetry monitoring is a target of the ABIM Foundation’s “Choosing Wisely” campaign, which recommends that hospitals develop a protocol to limit telemetry use. It is associated with ER overcrowding, over-testing and over-treatment of clinically irrelevant events, limited patient mobility and sleep due to frequent adjustment of equipment, and the cost of nurse and physician time responding to false alarms. A staggering statistic from the UCSF Medicine Service is that 44% of our patients are on telemetry until the moment they are discharged. We propose a four-part campaign to reduce unnecessary telemetry use at UCSF Parnassus - an educational campaign for housestaff, a messaging campaign with pocket cards and posters, a monthly feedback campaign to ward teams about their telemetry use, and a change to Apex to link the monitoring indication to an expiration time for the order.
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Nader, we created a telemetry
Nader, we created a telemetry order set with indications/ set expiration times at SFGH. It's been working pretty effectively if you have any interest in taking a look at it for your project.
Thanks, Larry. I'm working on
Thanks, Larry. I'm working on the project with three residents and they partly used SFGH's tele guide as a model for ours!