Do prehospital discharge pacemaker checks provide any additional clinical benefit?
We performed a retrospective analysis of 250 records of consecutive, newly implanted, pacemaker patients from a single center to determine the rate of postimplant complications and observations discovered before and during the prehospital discharge evaluation. No observations occurred in 246 of 250 patients (98.4%) (1-sided 95% confidence interval 96.4%). Of the 250 patients, 4 had observations that were discovered at the prehospital discharge check and required reprogramming to increase the sensitivity safety margin (3 atrial and 1 ventricular). We documented only 1 complication that was discovered before the predischarge evaluation through telemetry and resulted in an atrial lead revision.
Wheelan
Kevin R
KR
Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA. Kevinwh@baylorhealth.edu
Legge
Darlene M
DM
Sakowski
Brent C
BC
Bruce
Susan S
SS
Roberts
David C
DC
Johnston
L Murphy
LM
Moore
B Jane
BJ
Beveridge
Thomas P
TP
Wells
Peter J
PJ
Vallabahn
Ravi
R
Donsky
Michael S
MS
Franklin
Jay O
JO
D004868:Equipment Failure; D006801:Humans; D010138:Pacemaker, Artificial; D010351:Patient Discharge; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012189:Retrospective Studies