Calculating Heart Rate

Credentials in EKG signify earners' ability to operate machines that record the electrical activity of a patient’s heart, which provide data for the diagnosis of heart conditions. Tasks include setting up and administering EKGs and stress tests, preparing patients for Holter monitoring, editing and delivering final test results to the physician, scheduling appointments, and transcribing physicians’ interpretations. Successful EKG Technicians understand basic human anatomy, physiology, and medical terminology as related to the cardiovascular system as well as know how to set up an EKG machine and Holter monitor, prepare the patient for a variety of EKG tests, run the test under the physician’s supervision, recognize normal EKG tracings compared to abnormal tracings, identify abnormal tracings, and make appropriate reports to the physicians. Specifically, this badge demonstrates the earner's ability to describe the various methods for calculating a heart rate.