This project hopes to improve the emergency department triage process for obtaining a 12-lead electrocardiogram on patients with symptoms suggestive of acute coronary syndrome. I choose the Quality and Safety for Nurses Institute (2014) competency, quality improvement to guide this project. The Quality and Safety for Nurses Institute (2014), defines quality improvement as a continuous process of utilizing data to monitor, analyze, and improve the quality and safety of our health care system. I conducted an analysis of my facility’s data regarding emergency department door to electrocardiogram times for patients with symptoms suggestive of acute coronary syndrome. Moreover, when comparing the facility’s outcomes to national benchmarks, improvements in the process for completing an immediate 12-lead electrocardiogram is warranted.
An organization that supports this project is the American College of Cardiology. This organization establishes evidence-based clinical …show more content…
Therefore, the solution to improve the percentage of acute coronary syndrome patients that receive a 12-lead electrocardiogram within ten minutes of arrival to the emergency department is scheduling electrocardiogram technicians in the emergency department triage area. Allowing key stakeholders, such as the emergency department director and clinical manager to offer solutions to a problem, proved fruitful, as their proposed solution exceeded my