Is nurse-supervised exercise stress testing safe practice?
OBJECTIVE: Nurses have been performing exercise stress tests (EST) without medical supervision since 1978 in our hospital-based cardiac rehabilitation unit. This study was conducted to examine the incidence of cardiovascular complications and to describe the competency-based training program for the nurses performing the EST. DESIGN: Descriptive, retrospective audit of prospective data. SETTING: Single comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation center in a large tertiary referral hospital in western Sydney, Australia. SUBJECTS: Seventeen thousand, four hundred and sixty-seven patients were included in this study over a 12-year period. METHOD: Data were collected on all ESTs performed by the cardiac rehabilitation nurses from January 1986 to December 1997 in relation to serious cardiovascular complications and other EST parameters. RESULTS: In this study, 17,467 ESTs were performed on 5054 patients who had 6273 separate presentations. The most common entry diagnosis was after an acute myocard
