Originally Posted by The_Wonderkid
No. My patients don't wear name bands, don't have photos taken of them and don't have tags with barcodes on them! We aren't a medical ward so why act like one? lol
Generally the best way to find out who someone is is to ask them! TBH I have worked in units where you know who everyone is anyway. Its just the way it works and if you don't you ask a colleague to tell you who they are.
I do find it fascinating how other places work and do things. Some of the ways strike me as very erm unique to say the least.
My question is why SHOULD a patient wear a name band? Shouldn't the staff know who every patient is on their ward anyway? How can you give an intervention or write notes if you don't know who you are talking to? Doesn't putting name bands on patients ensure that there is a patient/staff divide and cause a possible breakdown in communication as a result? I thought the main purpose of Mental Health Nursing was to build a therapeutic relationship with patients in which you can build on to achieve a set goal (getting the person better and out into the community).
In the UK (Acute Assessment/Admissions Mental Health Wards) staff wear plain clothes (smart casual) and name tags (ones which break off if pulled to stop injurious behaviours) and patients don't wear bands of any sort.
My hospital has a love/hate relationship with the "hospital" handle r/t benefit/deficit ratio respectively...while our staff wear business casual, our patients all wear name bands...which, after a recent incident, is probably essential to their protection. You see, we are so short staffed, that more often than not, the unit is staffed by float staff from another unit...who for the most part have no idea who the patient is...and sometimes even refuse to believe the patient, when they report to the staff who they are.
We recently had an "adverse outcome" on one of our long-term units. There were two patients with the same name. One of them had been put on a "med holiday" in an attempt to tease out some symptoms of autism so that he could be transferred to our neuro unit. Long story short...the float RN went to the latter patient's room (alone) and insisted that they the meds that she had set up, which included two antipsychotics at very heavy doses, as well as various other meds. The patient apparently told her that he was not said individual, but the RN would not relent and the individual finally took the meds...only to end up being sent to the ER via ambulance less than two hours later based on his behavior, which a mental health worker observed to be completely out of character for this individual...he had on a name tag...but because we hand write them (we are super-high tech) they often blur in the shower...
Just my
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Thats hilarious!
