Gibson General Hospital is a rural, critical access hospital serving the residents of Gibson County Indiana. It is located near a major highway, US-41, numerous coal mines, Duke Energy power plant, Toyota manufacturing plant, and countless family farms around the county. Therefore, its ability to be prepared for various disasters, trauma’s, and emergent health conditions requires diligence, as the nearest level II trauma center is located 30 miles away. In the event of a disaster, trauma, or a patient with an emergent condition, Gibson General Hospital’s role is to assess, stabilize, and transfer the patient to the nearest appropriate facility to manage their care.
Gibson General’s emergency department (ED) consists of 12 patient rooms. Each room has the capability of monitoring a patient’s vital signs, by assessing their heart rhythm, heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, number of times they breathe a minute, and the amount of oxygen attached to their red blood cells. These vital signs are collected on an automated machine, set at a frequency deemed by the Registered Nurse, and then manually entered into the patient’s electronic health record (EHR). A central monitor is located in the nurses’ station to display the latest set of vital signs in all of the rooms. These monitors are dated and are in poor working
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University of Southern Indiana’s electronic library was used to search the following databases: Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, and MEDLINE with full text. Search terms included vitals, vital signs, monitors, documentation, electronic health record, informatics. To narrow the search results the following inclusions were selected: scholarly journals, full-text, articles between the years of