A patient’s temperature is a critical vital sign that may be
used by Emergency Department (ED) clinicians to determine the degree of illness and the need for further assess-ment and intervention. Accurate body temperature
measurement in the ED is necessary for the timely detec-tion and management of fever or hypothermia ; as well as
evaluating treatment effectiveness ( Crawford, Hicks, &
Thompson , 2006; Sund - Levander & Grodzinsky, 200 9) .
Pulmonary artery (PA) temperature is c onsidered the
“gold ” standard for measuring core body temperature (Ful-brook, 1993), as mixed venous blood temperature reflects
thermoregulation by the hypothalamus. Other invasive
methods include esophageal, rectal and bladder measurements. Rectal temprature is considered the least invasive
among these invasive temperature measures , and often is
assumed to approximate core temperature ( Fulbrook,
1993).