What should be the nurse's first action when a patient’s heart monitor shows asystole?

When a patient's heart monitor shows asystole, the nurse's immediate action should be to call for help and initiate CPR without delay. Asystole is a critical condition indicating that the heart has stopped beating effectively, and immediate resuscitation efforts are necessary to prevent irreversible brain damage and death.

Starting CPR is crucial because it helps maintain blood flow to vital organs, particularly the brain and heart. The primary goal during asystole is to restore a perfusing rhythm as quickly as possible. Furthermore, calling for help ensures that additional resources, such as advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), can be mobilized without wasting time.

Other actions, while important in the overall management of a patient in cardiac arrest, come after initiating CPR. For instance, checking the leads may be necessary to confirm the absence of heart activity, but this should not delay the critical step of starting resuscitation. Assessing the patient's responsiveness is also important, but in the case of asystole, where a patient is typically unresponsive, the focus must be on immediate intervention. Starting medication will occur later in the resuscitation sequence after the initial steps of CPR and advanced support are underway. Thus, the immediate initiation of CPR and calling for assistance is the most vital