How to Perform Medical Assistant Duties Including Checking Vital Signs & Triaging

Medical assistants, also known as nurses' aides, nursing assistants, orderlies, home-health aides, patient-care technicians or CNA's, work under the supervision of a nurse to help patients with daily living tasks. They are responsible for many personal care needs of patients such as bathing, assisting them to and from the bathroom, taking vital signs and changing bed linens. Because of their physical proximity to the patients, nursing assistants often provide vital information on patient conditions to nurses.

Things You'll Need

• Stethoscope
• Blood pressure cuff
• Watch displaying seconds
• Thermometer (ear version)
• Pen
• Paper or official form

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Instructions

How to Perform Medical Assistant Duties Including Checking Vital Signs and Triaging

• 1

  Introduce yourself to the patient, calling the patient by name, and using the titles "Mr.," "Mrs.," or "Ms." Make eye contact if possible. Tell the patient you are going to take his of her vital signs for use by the doctors and nurses.

• 2

  Ear thermometers are much easier to use for both patients and staff.

  Take the patient's temperature using an ear thermometer. Depending upon the brand and model, this may entail partial insertion into the ear canal or a short wait time. Use this wait time to ask and assess the patient's orientation: Does the patient know his or her name, whereabouts, what day it is? Record the temperature on the appropriate intake form or a piece of paper to transfer the information at your earliest convenience.

• 3

  Note the time and begin counting the patient's breaths for at least 30 seconds as you wrap a blood pressure cuff around the patient's arm. Record the respiration rate. Note whether the patient is breathing easily or struggling to get a breath. Counting the respiratory rate in this manner avoids the patient becoming aware of the measurement and altering his or her breathing rate. Support the patient's arm between your arm and your waist, on the bedside table if available, or along the patient's body on the bed or stretcher.

• 4

  Be sure to use the proper size cuff for the patient to get an accurate reading.

  Position the stethoscope in both your ears with the drum at the brachial artery of the inner elbow. Inflate the cuff to approximately 200 mm Hg and begin to slowly twist open the valve to release the pressure. Listen carefully for an audible pulse to begin and note when this occurs. This number is the systolic pressure. Continue to allow the blood pressure cuff to deflate until the audible pulse disappears. The number at this point is the diastolic pressure. Record the blood pressure readings.

• 5

  Take the patient's pulse by using either the stethoscope over the left side of the chest, or your index and middle fingers over the patient's wrist. While counting, note any extra or skipped beats. Take note of whether the pulse is strong and bounding or weak. If the pulse is irregular, count the heartbeats for a full minute. If the pulse is regular in rhythm, count the beats for 30 seconds and multiple that amount by two. Record the patient's pulse.

• 6

  Ask the patient if he or she is in any pain and record it on a scale from zero to 10. Ask about any known allergies and record those. Finally, tell the patient your name again and inform the patient that you are leaving briefly to provide this information to the doctors and nurses.

• 7

  With every new patient, your triage order must be reshuffled to take into account a new patient condition.

  Rank the patients in the order of severity of condition, most to least, as demonstrated by abnormal vital signs, breathing difficulties, bleeding and pain reports, and per your facility's chosen triage decision tree. Re-rank the patients to be seen first with every new patient seen and evaluated.