Followup study affirms safety of reducing cardiac telemetry use outside ICU
The Journal of the American Medical Association published a research letter June 15 on additional findings from the nationally recognized cardiac telemetry study that was published in November in the prestigious medical journal.
The initial study, which led to dramatic reduction in cardiac telemetry use at Christiana Care, demonstrated that fewer than 1 percent of cardiac telemetry alarms represented relatively important clinical events. The new study probed the 1 percent of telemetry alarms (78) that were considered “real” alarms. Of the 78 alarms, only one alarm presented an actual life-threatening situation — and even that case quickly resolved itself without any medical interventions. Only 29 alarms were classified as clinically important.
These findings reinforced the success of the cardiac telemetry intervention.