15 minutes to give report + no time clock

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Anybody else think this is shady and borderline illegal?

It is annoying because we are expected to give report on 4-6 patients to 1 or 2 or even 3 nurses. This includes giving report, filling out white board with RN name, making sure IV lines are labeled, and capped, call bell within reach, bed alarm is set. Making sure that the drug is selected into the pump, verifying they have patient folder with side effects pages, doing any handoff interventions (heparin drip). Then meeting the patient and fielding any questions / personal needs they have. Rinse and repeat for five patients.

If you give any actual decent report, there is no way to do these things in under 3 minutes per patient.

Even if you (previous shift) make absolutely sure that the aforementioned things are completed, it is still so unrealistic.

Thoughts?

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Occasionally management also has the audacity to try to 'huddle' with the nurses before they leave.

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Specializes in Medical-Surgical/Float Pool/Stepdown.

Welcome to hotel management...I mean err...healthcare at the bedside. :blackeye: :madface:

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So what can be done to change this????

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Specializes in Family Medicine.

In my experience (we do bedside report and huddles), it takes a full hour to do this song and dance.

Make sure you bow at the end, before you clock out.

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Basically, when we do all we are supposed to do, it can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. We have huddles where we go over the floor and that can take 15 minutes to 20 when people use it as a full report. That is not what it is. After that, we have to get report from usually 2 to 3 nurses. Then during bedside report: we go over the sbar, check lines, check alarms, call light , and ask the patient if they have any questions. Almost every patient who gets up with max assist finds it the perfect time to use the bathroom which i don't blame them. It just becomes very timely. I work days so sometimes, I don't get started until 8:00. We will still get told we need to get out on time even though report the way they want truly takes an hour. There is no way to get it done much quicker. The only time we do is when we go very quickly through report and give the basics.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

Opinions do not matter - evidence does. I would begin by having a logical and articulate (unemotional) conversation with your manager. Make sure s/he knows that you are speaking from a position of "I like the idea of a bedside hand-off and I really believe that it does work but I am having a lot of trouble meeting the parameters (time limit) that have been set. I need to know if it is actually realistic. So I'd like to conduct a small study." Any sane manager would never turn down a staff member who volunteers to so a QI activity.

Start collecting data by simply timing these activities. Put away your bias and resist the temptation to exaggerate anything. Maybe you can talk some of your co-workers into helping. The more data you can collect, the more convincing the result. Maybe you'll discover that extra time is always needed whenever there are visitors in the room or that there is a direct positive correlation with other factors.

Results could be very interesting. You may find evidence to show your manager that the 'extra' time is actually time spent in patient teaching rather than just giving report. As those HCAHPS scored go up, those time limits may become more relaxed.

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