Management is turning the hospital into the Four Seasons (If they could)

[abbaking]

Well, I am working at a hospital that is convinced that we nurses need to provide a more customer service friendly environment for our patients. The lingo is the same everywhere, but what most ammuses me is the 24 hour room service and how we are now trained to answer the telephone on our unit. We have to answer saying "Good Morning, Unit ____, This is _____, How can I assist you?". Is it just me or does this feel like over-the-top Kiss a** behavior? I am just sick and tired of management trying to make patients hospitalizations turn into a resort-like experience. We are now required to pass out fresh stremed linens (bathrobes) in the morning and evenings, provide back massages, and be the messengers for patients every little wish. I AM FED UP WITH IT!!!.

Management fails to realize that when patients dont get what they want or cant get what they want (due to dietary restrictions), it allows the patients and there family to treat us nurses like crap. It just amazes me that no matter how hard our jobs keep getting, management will NEVER help us out, validate our concerns, or every pretend to show interest.

I work the night shift and of course from administrations viewpoint they say "How hard can the night shift be; all your patients are asleep". I have a mental image of the administrative staff thinking that all we do on nights is sit around the nurses station eating dunkin donuts.

Enough is Enough:angryfire:angryfire:angryfire:devil:

[locolorenzo22, BSN, RN]

This is always been one of my major sticking points....I'm not even a nurse, but I see the points of both sides....

1. Hospitals are NOT meant to be a hotel....but patients have the right to friendly, compassionate service. People do not come to the hospital for a vacation(in most cases), but when management allows patients to make complaints and do not follow up with involved staff or take the side of the staff, this leads to a workplace where patients must be in the wrong...

2. patients who have major pain, or refuse to comply with treatment, or whose families are viewed as PITAs must have a problem....but when a different approach is used, the same patients can become less of a problem...

I personally do not agree with techs who tell me in report "oh this family/patient will bother you all night..."....usually with consistant care, they are ok....

[whontime]

That's the reason, because of surly or lazy nurses. Yes, not every nurse is Florence Nightingale, some are, in fact, Nurse Ratchet.

And most of us are somewhere in between. Most of the administrative staff have no idea what being a bedside nurse is like. They are there to implement policy and field complaints etc.. I won't claim to know all the points of their jobs either. However, I am an ER nurse with anywhere from 4-6 pt's at most times. I look at it this way..... I have multiple IV drips/meds going, IV/labs to get done, ekg's to do, suture carts to set up, ng tubes to put down etc... Nurses have all of the pt care to do which is going to trump the extra blankets, pillows, 3rd sandwich, taking pt's outside to smoke, letting their 4th family member back etc.. I am sorry, but that is just the way it is. I am the type of nurse that chooses to handle my pt's medical care and needs first, the other stuff isn't going to kill them, but not doing the medical interventions just might.

[melski68]

well my hospital wants a GENTLER appearance.

they are making security wear suits and ties. IN THE ER no less.

i wonder if the hospital is going to pay their dry cleaning bills, after they take down the urine and puke infested beligerent drunk that is too drunk for detox.

happy holidays to everybody

[happydays352]

I can see your point in this. I am a very large supporter of better customer service and over all better care (see my article in the articles section "Putting Hospitality Back in the Hospital).

People in general understand that the hospital is not the Holiday Inn. But is it so wrong to expect a smile from thier CNA, a meal they actually WANT to eat (ie if they hate turkey not having to shove it off the plate every meal because no one cares?) and prompt assistance to the bathroom.

It sounds like a lot of people are more frustrated with thier management, then they are with the idea of customer service.

Being sick in the hospital, afraid, lonely and out of thier element is bad enough for patients, but then to feel like they are in the way, ignored and not human makes that pain even worse.

The career of nursing is going through a major phase change again in my opinion, and we must press on to demand the respect and working conditions we need from our management so we DO have the energy to WANT to smile at our patients when we go in the room!

Tait

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Mulan]

i couldn't agree more. it seems liek many nurses are in it for reasons other than what they should be in it for. my mother had suregery last year and i literally have to stay in the hospital with her all three days. she went to the bathroom and got stuck for about 15 minutes and no one came to help her. when i went to the nurses station to ask why they left her there like that, her room was still buzzing their station and they ignored me. they had the worst attitudes. personally, i believe that you should treat the patients well, after all, we have/will all be patients at some point in our lives. what's the problem with treating people well and wanting them to be happy, despite having to be in a hospital, sick and away from their families?

It would be a lot easier to do if one RN wasn't responsible for 10 patients.

[abbaking]

I want to mention that I agree with the mentality of providing great customer serive and making the hospitalization as comfortable as possible, but there are lines and limits. If we are short staffed, our patient acuity level is high, and we have barely enough time to pass out meal trays and PO meds, all these extra "perks" (bathrobes, 24 hour meals, manditory back rubs) are not a top priority.

Patients and visitors need to get through there heads that it is NOT a hotel. This is a hospital. Vitals are checked q4. Weights are daily. Baths (shower or bedbath) are daily.

I am just exhausted with all this manditory customer service BULL management is forceing us to provide. No, I dont have to time or the energy to run down to the cafeteria 20 or 30 times a night to pick my patients up a sandwhich. No, I dont have to time to give a therapeutic deep tissue back massage. I have extremely sick patients, NO CNA's and No ward clerk. :angryfire

[sharann, BSN, RN]

I want to mention that I agree with the mentality of providing great customer serive and making the hospitalization as comfortable as possible, but there are lines and limits. If we are short staffed, our patient acuity level is high, and we have barely enough time to pass out meal trays and PO meds, all these extra "perks" (bathrobes, 24 hour meals, manditory back rubs) are not a top priority.

Patients and visitors need to get through there heads that it is NOT a hotel. This is a hospital. Vitals are checked q4. Weights are daily. Baths (shower or bedbath) are daily.

I am just exhausted with all this manditory customer service BULL management is forceing us to provide. No, I dont have to time or the energy to run down to the cafeteria 20 or 30 times a night to pick my patients up a sandwhich. No, I dont have to time to give a therapeutic deep tissue back massage. I have extremely sick patients, NO CNA's and No ward clerk. :angryfire

You(nor I ) should be running down to the Cafeteria all night. Of course we are not the patient or families servant. I am in no way in favor of abusing nurses. I am also not a masseuse and I could do more harm than good doing more than soe basic comforting and maybe rubbing some lotion on their hands.

Patient safe care comes first and should not be a perk and yet often it is. I find this to be true for my hospital as well. We are trying though, to be more patient and understanding and compassionate. Does this make us angels of mercy? NO! It makes us a good person. Period. A smile goes so far and it doesn't take any extra time. Even when we feel like punching a wall we still have to look like we give a darn.

[Blee O'Myacin, BSN, RN]

It sure makes it hard to be caring and compassionate when mngt practices lead to nurses being unable to eat or pee for 12 hours. I wouldn't have to time be caring if I had ten pts to take care of, I'd settle for keeping them all alive. Most nurses I've met want to take care of people they want to be able to go the extra mile, but they can't. Often times because they just don't have the time or resources.

Hmmm TV's or better care? Yeah clearly management has the right priorities.

If your patient has a cool TV, maybe they'll be distracted enough to "let you" go to the bathroom during your shift.

Seriously. Go to the bathroom. You'll be able to provide better care if you weren't hopping up and down on one foot!

We are the only ones who will speak up and take care of ourselves.

Blee

[psalm, RN]

If we are like Four Seasons, are we getting tips for our services?

[Tait, MSN, RN]

I got a tip the other night.

"Thank you for being here for me and making me feel that someone was looking out for me"

That is all I need to keep me happy.

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

well my hospital wants a GENTLER appearance.

they are making security wear suits and ties. IN THE ER no less.

i wonder if the hospital is going to pay their dry cleaning bills, after they take down the urine and puke infested beligerent drunk that is too drunk for detox.

happy holidays to everybody

Worked in an inner city commuity hospital for 15 years night shift with Security wearing blue blazer, white shirt and tie...worked like a charm.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

abbaking. . .guess you've never been a patient and on the other end of the service that is being received. as i have been admitted several times lately, i can tell you i'd rather prefer being in a facility where i am being treated like a 5-star customer, not that i asked for it. there was a pervasive thought many years ago that the patients deserved the catering to that they got because they had worked hard all their lives and they deserved being "waited" on while they were ill. i heard this sentiment all the time from the older nurses i worked with back in the 1970s and 1980s. that's when we were doing back rubs with am and pm care and doing linen changes at hs along with giving patients a clean hospital gown. that kind of nursing care has long gone by the wayside.

i worked in two hospitals in southern california that had frequent celebrity patients. we were told in orientations at both exactly how we were to treat all patients coming into those facilities, not just the celebrities, or it was out the door (job termination) for us. nursing is a service industry. if you can't find it in yourself to go a few extra steps to be kind and courteous to people then get out of the profession and find another one where you can curl up in a cubby hole somewhere and not have any contact with anyone. in case you haven't heard, unless a patient is bound into an hmo they can often pick and choose the hospital they go to, so the hospitals have to be competitive with each other for patient business. hospitals are bound into the same fee agreements as well with insurance companies, medicare and medicaid, so the only thing left to attract business is giving better customer service. it's simple economics: more patient's = more revenue coming in = money to pay the bills, including the nurse's salaries. that's just the way it is in today's world, pal. with california's nurse staff ratio law, the hospitals have to do what they can to keep their beds full and the revenue coming in. if you want to be philanthropic about your nursing, join some organization that does this. but you have to realize that a hospital, while it may be non-profit, still has to keep it's head above water and nursing employees who go around trashing their employers customer service policies isn't helping them. why don't you just bite the hand that feeds you?