Staff Nurses Knowledge on Basics of Electrocardiogram Interpretation and Arterial Blood Gas Analysis Can be Significantly Improved by an Educational Intervention over a Period of 12 Weeks: An Audit Cycle-Based Quality Improvement Report

A severe shortage of healthcare professionals was reported in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic surged across the country. A huge number of primary as well as tertiary healthcare centres hired inexperienced and under confident employees in order to meet the demand. This could potentially cause a decline in the overall quality of service that healthcare employees provide to their patients. In an Intensive care unit (ICU) setting, knowledge on basics of interpretation of electrocardiogram (ECG) and arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis is mandatory by not only doctors but also staff nurse practitioners, according to the guidelines set locally. Daily routine of teaching sessions has considerably reduced due to social distancing norms set out by the government [1]. This quality improvement study describes baseline knowledge on ECG and ABG interpretation of the staff nurses in a 23 bedded ICU setting of a tertiary healthcare centre and investigates whether a simple weekly teaching session as an educational intervention can improve it.