EKG Sites and Software

Last week, listener Woody asked about good sites for EKG practice. I’ve looked around and come up with a few suggestions and gotten a few ideas from other listeners as well. First of all I’d like to stress that all of us need to work on skills maintenance all of the time. It is the reason for our continuing education requirements.

EKG reading is a skill that is no different. For most of us, we look at monitor readings all of the time. But how often do you see some of the rare but critical heart rhythms. It is a good idea for all of us to review our common and uncommon heart rhythms on a regular basis. Practice makes our assessment and diagnosis skills sharper and may save a patient’s life down the road.

Here are the suggestions:

1. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Medline site on arrhythmias has a good resource for starters and general information.
2. Check out the EKG learning section over at EMS Village with helpful definitions and animations on heart function and rhythm definition.
3. Here is an interactive site from Merck on abnormal heart rhythms that is a good resource for review and includes a variety of possible treatment drugs for each.
4. Longtime listener Helen sent this one in as well. Emergencyekg.com
5. ECG Wave Maven includes a quiz mode
6. Blaufuss Medical Media Site for ECG Learning and Heart Sounds, too!
7. Chris Black, a good friend of the MedicCast offered this software package from Mad Scientist Software on ACLS and Heart Rhythm identification and treatment. Chris says, “I’ve used this stuff for years. It’s the best thing out there. It’s entertaning as well as very informative. The Code Team software is all anyone will need.” Thanks, Chris!