Taping the EKG leads: other options?

[croaker260]

The adhesive on most non medical tapes (and some medical tapes) is indeed unsanitary and a great medium for bacteria. Duct tape is for some reason the worst for this, dont know how electrical tape rates. Not saying that we shouldn't use tape, but that we shouldn't use tape for long periods of time with out swapping it out or expose/use it on multiple patients.

Essentially, I think your fellow crews have a point.

Case in point: those nasty strands of tape last shift hung from the grab rail "just in case" for their next IV....

Now do think you have a neat Idea, but its you execution that is poor. Perhaps the rubber bands would be a good idea, as mentioned. Plastic clips would be better. Dont know what type of monitor your using, but for us, these would be impractical as we (99% of time) put our limb leads on the ...ahem...distal limbs not the chest. This is our preferred site for 12 leads and is quicker for regular limb lead use. Therefore with our system (the LP 12) the leads are just long enough to be useful in most patents, and bunchig them together would shorten their reach a few inches. Now if you place 99% of you limb leads on the chest....then I can see your point.

As a final note, if you have 4 leads, then it isnt technically a "3 lead ECG". Its simply "limb leads" because they give you I, II, III, and AVL, AVR, AVF (the augmented leads). But then maybe I'm being anal.

[AnthonyM83]

Our medics usually just leave the four leads sticking partially out of the zipper, so you can just grab all three at a time and easily separate white/green from black/red. Sometimes it might be useful to have them sub separated into w/g and b/r like if your passing the leads to someone, but more often than not I think it'd be faster not to have to rip the tape IF they're sticking out of the bag already.

I like the idea of keeping the 4-electrode stickers still connected in a row of four (if they come prepackaged in rows). Our field medics have pre-separted circle ones though. I've also seen the disentangler wand that you slide from start to end of electrodes to separate them. Props for taking time to come up with a system, though.

[firespec35]

I kinda like the speed lead idea. It would add bulk to a monitor though

[brentoli]

Velcro wouldn't be a bad option. You can come accross them fairly cheap. Get enough that after every call you can switch them out, and at the end of the day give them a wash.

[Dustdevil]

I like the idea of keeping the 4-electrode stickers still connected in a row of four (if they come prepackaged in rows).

Exactly. Doesn't everybody do this? Why would somebody go through all the trouble and effort to reinvent the wheel with nasty, sticky tape when just keeping your leads preattached does the job and saves you TWO steps instead of just one?

I am all for finding step and time saving techniques. It shows good thinking. And, as usual, kudos to you for checking here for opinions and options, Fiznat. But I think there are better ways than what you are doing.

[fiznat]

Exactly. Doesn't everybody do this?

Yeahhh except this assumes that your company uses leads that come attached to eachother. Where I work the leads come in packages of 3 and loose. What we usually do is open up a bunch of packages and fill a specimen bag with the individual leads.

If they came attached to eachother, that would be a different story.

[Dustdevil]

Ahh... yes, there are a lot of real geniuses in EMS supply these days.

Out here, ours come attached in a strip. Only problem is, they are irreversibly hung up on buying the Lifepak brand electrodes that come in strips of THREE, but our monitor has FOUR wires. :roll:

[Scaramedic]

Ummm how about 1" staples? Sterile staples of course. :wink:

Peace,

Marty