title: Do prehospital discharge pacemaker checks provide any additional clinical benefit?
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA. Kevinwh@baylorhealth.edu
authors.forename: Kevin R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Wheelan
authors.forename: Darlene M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Legge
authors.forename: Brent C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Sakowski
authors.forename: Susan S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Bruce
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: L Murphy
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.forename: B Jane
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Moore
authors.forename: Thomas P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Beveridge
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Wells
authors.forename: Ravi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Vallabahn
authors.forename: Michael S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Donsky
authors.forename: Jay O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Franklin
mesh_terms: D004868:Equipment Failure; D006801:Humans; D010138:Pacemaker, Artificial; D010351:Patient Discharge; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012189:Retrospective Studies