Another vent!

[marcicatherine]

Today I was called into the nurse managers's office. She had received a complaint from the director of a nursing home. They had sent us a patient several weeks ago with a head lac 2nd being pushed out of her wheelchair. I was not the patients primary nurse, but due to the patient being confused, I had redressed the head lac 4 times. She pulled it off several times. I also helped change her 2 times. We CT'd her head and the doc sewed her head.

The time line was as follows

*arrival and triage assessment 0900

*2nd nurse assessment 0915

*doc assessment 0925

*to CT @ 0955

*back from CT 1015

*from 0945 to 1115 head lac redressed 5 times, bed changed 2 times. VSx2, pain assessment, RN assessment...etc.

*doc sewed lac at 1130

*called for ambulance transport back to NH 1200

*discharge with ambulance crew 1330

The complaint was that we didn't take good care of her. They stated she was incontinent of urine when they received her back at the nursing home (perhaps that happened on the ambulance ride home). The main complaint was......we didn't feed her lunch!! I couldn't believe that was the major complaint. Has this person ever been to an emergency room. I believe that same day we have 2 MI's and a resp diff. that had to be intubated...and we didn't feed her lunch. I understand that she needs to eat, but she had a family member with her (who was obviously the person who complained about us) and that person never said anything about food, or offered to feed her. The patient was non-verbal.

Has anyone else out there ever received these kind of complaints? Am I over reacting by getting upset about this? We don't have the time and really don't have the staff to feed the nsg home patients that come in. Luckily admin. is on our side and luckily I(we) documented well.

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

She probably wouldn't have eaten anything for you or her family if she was that confused. As a LTC nurse I'd just be happy if you were able to assess her and suture or dress her wound. Was the pt a diabetic? I'd also question the fact that she was pushed from her wheel chair.... yep accidents happen, but...... Please remember...not all nursing homes are dumping grounds for bad nurses..... The nurses should know better than to complain... that pt is probably a handfull for them to take care of.

[MAGIK GIRL]

Originally posted by marcicatherine

That's a great policy in a perfect world and a perfect ER. Our policy is....if you or your family asks for food, you get it. Otherwise we are stretched too thin to feed all the nursing home patients that we hold everyday.

My point was...we provided the EMERGENT care that the patient needed (in the Emergency Room) and the only complant the nsg home could come up with is....she wasn't fed lunch.

hey marci! just do what i do, smile and nod! it makes life alot more tolerable. laugh out loud to the funny things you are thinking and no one will be the wiser!

i would not get to upset at that complaint. as a matter of fact, i can't even believe that your nurse manager even entertained it that much! and then to even call you into the office, how non supportive can a manager be. the facts were in your time line.

i could understand the complaint if the senerio were different. if that was your private duty pt and the only one that you had and you did not feed her, well then, shame on you! but that is not the case! you did what any prudent er nurse would have, you took care of the emergency pt first!

please refer your manager and any other complaintents to the "er restaurant" thread.

respectfully,

magik girl!

[tiredfeetED]

Originally posted by vitalsigns

I work in an ER and I have to say if someone wants food and asks for it and they can have we will get it for them. But it is hard to get tray service to our dept so we have sandwhich boxes that we can give them. I always find it really funny that they come to the ER usually by ambulance and the first things that they need are food, to pee and to have a BM.

OR they want to go smoke!

About 90% of the time..these LTC are saturated with urine or feces. Or my favorite they Have scabies!eww..I had a pt from LTC with a BP in the 70's had started titrating dopamine and the LTC called and just wanted to remind me that "I" should not to treat her for the scabies because she was treated early in the week..and "THEY" should be dead. I told her that it looked like she had active scabies and that was the last thing on my mine...Come on BP!

[Owney]

Tiredfeet,

Did you ask her which b/p meds had been given today and whether shes allegic to pressors. Did you ask if she'd had a bath/dressing changes today. Did you ask about foley care, after all you might see pee even before her dopamine kicks in!

:roll

[veetach]

Originally posted by marcicatherine

That's a great policy in a perfect world and a perfect ER. Our policy is....if you or your family asks for food, you get it. Otherwise we are stretched too thin to feed all the nursing home patients that we hold everyday.

My point was...we provided the EMERGENT care that the patient needed (in the Emergency Room) and the only complant the nsg home could come up with is....she wasn't fed lunch.

AMEN! Our policy is pretty much the same. On night shift the only thing we have that resembles food is a frozen Healthy Choice dinner. We dont volunteer food and believe me, people dont hesitate to ask for it when they are hungry!

I am afraid in my ED the manager would just say "I will take this complaint into consideration" and then that would be the end of it.

[marcicatherine]

Thanks for the support. Actually my nurse manager did get a laugh out of the complaint, she was just trying to get a point of view and wanted to know what I remembered about the patient.

And your comments are exactly right. If I complained everytime a nsg home sent a patient covered in dried feces, (obviously not a recent BM) severely dehydrated, dirty, smelly, or etc.....I would be writing complaints all day.

It's difficult when you feel like you've gone above and beyond your duties (remember..this was not my patient) and people still find something silly to complain about.

[MAGIK GIRL]

Originally posted by veetach

AMEN! Our policy is pretty much the same. On night shift the only thing we have that resembles food is a frozen Healthy Choice dinner. We dont volunteer food and believe me, people dont hesitate to ask for it when they are hungry!

my personal favorite is the healthy choice meatloaf dinner!

[ensense]

I can diffinitely relate to ridiculous complaints AND HAVE FOUND THE CURE. It is called zoloft. Since we have no Ativan fountain in the lobby I decided to medicate myself. Now I just don't care. I can do my job and keep my blood pressure under control at the same time.

Seriously though, this profession is getting out of control. What happened to the people of 20 years ago that were thankful for their care and understood you were only human?

[MAGIK GIRL]

Originally posted by ensense

I can diffinitely relate to ridiculous complaints AND HAVE FOUND THE CURE. It is called zoloft. Since we have no Ativan fountain in the lobby I decided to medicate myself. Now I just don't care. I can do my job and keep my blood pressure under control at the same time.

Seriously though, this profession is getting out of control. What happened to the people of 20 years ago that were thankful for their care and understood you were only human?

i agree. everyone is so worried that someone else will get something better than them or something for nothing. it is a shame. but the good news is there are still some decent people out there. i wonder what er they go to???

[laurakc]

I used to do ortho...ok, this manager even called me into the office because I made a pot of coffee for someone to tell me that he said it was too strong and kept him up all night...he asked for it after midnight, I asked if he wanted decaf, he said no, it's a packet per pot, believe me, I wanted him to sleep, I did not add extra, and he complained. And he even said that a nurse should know better. My answer, an 85 year old man should know better than to drink coffee at that time of the night, duh...

That was really uncalled for.

Then, got called into the office again because a patient woke up when we were working a code and I peeked in and said I would be right with her. Pt got upset because she wanted pain pills and she had to wait...

I used to review the patient surveys...this will get ya...the same foods are served on every floor, so why does it taste better on one floor than another???