Clinical skills: cardiac rhythm recognition and monitoring

With technological advances, changes in provision of healthcare services and increasing pressure on critical care services, ward patients' severity of illness is ever increasing. As such, nurses need to develop their skills and knowledge to care for their client group. Competency in cardiac rhythm monitoring is beneficial to identify changes in cardiac status, assess response to treatment, diagnosis and post-surgical monitoring. This paper describes the basic anatomy and physiology of the heart and its conduction system, and explains a simple and easy to remember process of analysing cardiac rhythms (Resuscitation Council UK, 2000) that can be used in first-line assessment to assist healthcare practitioners in providing care to their patients.