Project Overview
Teaching ECGs to first time clinicians whose primary job will not be reading ECGs is challenging. While there's a plethora of Free Open Access Medicine education (FOAMed) resources available, its can be difficult for the novice clinician to find the right resources to work for them. Resources may use different terminologies or metrics, or they may be highly opinionated on specific findings - and we do welcome these differences and outlooks. The problem is that novice clinicians, like new emergency department nurses, just need the facts.
This project was developed to be an adjunct to all those resources available for novice clinicans to learn how to read ECGs. In fact, we often reference some of those tools and resources here because this project is not meant to replace those resources. Our tool is intended for the novice clinician, or more specifically, the novice emergency department nurse. ECG interpretation is something not usually covered in undergratuate nursing education, but it's often required in specialty education. Some jurasidictions are lucky to offer accredited courses on ECG interpretation, while others rely on employer-led inservices (if not just simply on-the-job training).
However, it's not like this information is unique to the emergency department nursing population, and so we hope that the information on this website is useful to all clinicians in all specialties.
Selecting ECGs
This project does not aim to be opinion-free; instead, it is opinion-light. The biggest opinion being made here is on which ECGs are being highlighted or simulated. To support our decisions, we looked at three different resources to guide our decision.
- Life-threatening arrhythmias identified by the American Heart Association/Heart and Stroke Foundation
- The top 20 ranked need-to-know ECGs identified by emergency nurses in a study by ...
- Available policies and/or protocols regarding ECG monitoring in nurses