My colleague and I use AACN’s “9 features” (those that appear in the ECG Puzzler column) in a basic ECG course we teach to nurses working in the intensive care and telehealth units in our hospital. However, we’ve been wondering about some discrepancies in the column. The first deals with heart rate. Although the ECG Puzzler states that “normal” heart rate is “60–90 beats per minute,” the literature (including AACN’s literature) states that a normal rate is 60 to 100/min.

The second problem is with PR interval. According to the ECG Puzzler, a short PR interval is one that is less than 0.08 seconds. However, the literature seems to disagree on this measurement, instead suggesting that a short PR interval is less than 0.12 seconds.

The next point is about QTc and T waves. We would suggest that both of these features could include a check box that reads “cannot...

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