SHM Converge Scientific Abstract ePoster Gallery-Optimizing Cardiac Telemetry Utilization in Hospital Medicine: A Multidisciplinary Approach

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Northwell Health describes itself as New York State’s largest health care provider and private employer, committed to high-quality care, medical education, research, health education, and serving all patients regardless of ability to pay. It operates 23 hospitals, more than 700 outpatient facilities, and has over 13,600 affiliated physicians.

The document then presents a quality improvement project from the Division of Hospital Medicine titled <strong>“Optimizing Cardiac Telemetry Utilization in Hospital Medicine: A Multidisciplinary Approach.”</strong> The project focused on reducing inappropriate use of cardiac telemetry in hospitalized patients. Telemetry is important for detecting dangerous arrhythmias, but overuse can cause problems such as alarm fatigue, strain nursing resources, and contribute to long emergency department waits when telemetry beds are limited.

The team’s goal was to increase the percentage of patients whose telemetry orders were stopped before discharge by 10% over four months. To do this, they created a multidisciplinary team including hospitalists, advanced care practitioners, nurses, nurse managers, telemetry technologists, and quality leaders, with support from senior hospital leadership. Their interventions included reviewing evidence-based telemetry guidelines, sharing those guidelines with clinicians, and creating an escalation pathway for cases where providers disagreed about stopping telemetry.

Results showed improvement. Telemetry discontinuation rates increased from <strong>44% to 47.8%</strong> after education, and then to <strong>54.2%</strong> after the escalation pathway was introduced. Although the project did not fully reach its benchmark, it demonstrated that multidisciplinary teamwork, education, and a structured decision pathway can improve telemetry stewardship and support more appropriate use of hospital resources.

Asset Subtitle

Bryant Faria

Meta Tag

Author List Bryant Faria

Category Innovations

Concept Continuous ECG Monitoring

Concept Cardiac Arrhythmia

Concept Discontinuation

Concept Telemetry Discontinuation Rate

Concept Inappropriate Use

Distinguished Non-Finalist

Presenter Organization Long Island Jewish Medical Center

Presenting Author Bryant Faria

Track Quality Improvement

Keywords

Northwell Health

hospital medicine

cardiac telemetry

quality improvement

telemetry utilization

multidisciplinary team

alarm fatigue

evidence-based guidelines

telemetry stewardship

hospital resources

Continuous ECG Monitoring

Cardiac Arrhythmia

Discontinuation

Telemetry Discontinuation Rate

Inappropriate Use