Name a stupid policy/idea your facility thought would fly

[tokmom]

A former facility thought they could multi task the housekeepers by having them be lab techs. If they were in a room cleaning, they could drop their mops and get a few vials of blood for us. That lasted about a month before it was thankfully stopped.

I remember watching them learn to draw blood. They were given a 30 min tutorial on a rubber arm.

[Psychtrish39, BSN, RN]

Dang Carolladybelle and floridanurse,

I once considered moving to Florida to live and do nursing there glad you all are truth tellers and giving us the skinny. I sometimes think our healthcare world as it once was even 10 years ago has almost gone the way of the dodo.. extinct

[redhead_NURSE98!, ADN, BSN]

My former hospital decided to treat NG and G-tubes as sterile lines briefly and instructed people to scrub the ports with alcohol for 15 seconds prior to accessing them, use only sterile H20, use a new sterile syringe every time, throw away the rest of the bottle of sterile H20 (they were 60 mL bottles and we'd be using like 10 mL to flush these tubes in these kids) after using it once, etc. Almost no one complied with it and then they realized that the evidence didn't support any of it and spent as much time and energy rescinding the policy as they did creating it. Now they get mad when people use sterile H20 for anyone other than oncology or transplant patients because of the "budget".

HAHAHA I had to set my nursing instructor straight on an NG tube insertion not being a sterile procedure....I finally had to say "HELLO, your digestive tract is from your MOUTH to your BUTTHOLE" for her to think about it.

[beachmom]

Our hospital is building on a new addition. Every time PTO cashout time comes (instead of taking vacation, we can turn our PTO into cash) the administration asks if any of us want to donate our PTO to the new building. Everybody just laughs and says, "yeah, right."

[tntrn, ASN, RN]

Our hospital is building on a new addition. Every time PTO cashout time comes (instead of taking vacation, we can turn our PTO into cash) the administration asks if any of us want to donate our PTO to the new building. Everybody just laughs and says, "yeah, right."

Bwahahaha! Best laugh I've had all day.

[sameasalways, ASN, RN]

Our newest policy is that we are supposed to clean all the IV pumps and poles when our patient is discharged and put it in the clean supply room. Housekeeping and central sterile no longer take part in any part of this (IV poles).

[wooh, BSN, RN]

Our newest policy is that we are supposed to clean all the IV pumps and poles when our patient is discharged and put it in the clean supply room. Housekeeping and central sterile no longer take part in any part of this (IV poles).

We've had that for a long time. It's fabulous. Why would we ever expect housekeeping to clean things? Isn't it obvious that's the nurse's job?

[Natkat, BSN, MSN, RN]

My company comes up with new policies now and again, but we mostly ignore them. What gripes me is a hospital where we have an inpatient dialysis unit. The director of the unit where we do dialysis is very insecure and wants everyone to know that we MUST respect her A-THOR-A-TAY! Weirdo things like keeping needles covered up on the supply cart because someone might get ahold of one, even though they are sealed in packages; requiring that we stop by and check in with security whenver we come into the building even though we already have badges with security clearance. For a while she tried to make it a rule that we had to have two nurses in the dialysis unit at all times even if we only had one patient. She quickly change her mind when she was told they'd have to pay the other nurse for that. Her latest rule is that we cannot have a female dialysis patient in the same room as a male dialysis patient - even though chronic units dialyze male and female patients in the same room all the time. What chaps my behind is the way our management caves into her crazy demands. I wish they would just tell her that she can't tell us how to run our business, thankyouverymuch.

[Natkat, BSN, MSN, RN]

Oh, and her even crazier side-kick, the infection control nurse, is an even BIGGER pain in the butt. She decided that the biohazard bins in the rooms were, well, a biohazard, and had them all removed. So now all biohazard material has to be walked down the hall to the dirty utility room. So now instead of the cooties being contained in the room, we have the opportunity to scatter them to the winds as we walk down the hall. But we can't just put them in the room, we have to bag them before we take them out of the patient room, but then didn't provide us with any bags.

And around and around we go.

[Jenni811, RN]

Our rule is we have to sit with EVERY SINGLE patient in the bathroom. No patient is allowed to be left on commode or bathroom. If patient is in due to some sort of arrythmia or is at risk for arrythmia (such as fresh open heart patients) it has to be a NURSE.

Think about it....i take 20 minutes to get a slow moving old lady to the bathroom who has to pee 50cc of urine every hour. And now she wants to have a bowel movement and has been constipated for days. Yes lady...i'd LOVE to make you poop. I've given you everything under the sun to make you go and our only option left is golytley... but i CANNOT sit in the bathroom with you for an hour and watch you straining to poop.

Psht, sitting in bathroom with ALL patients. Imagine the look on my 22 year old male patient when he needed to go to the bathroom. Im 23 years old, he was 22 and was in for "observation" after being in a bar fight and getting knocked in the head. "You really have to stand in here with me?".....my reply "how about i just leave the door open and we call it good? just don't fall"

[sameasalways, ASN, RN]

OMG yes we are not supposed to leave anyone in the bathroom or bedside commode alone if they have a fall score of 6 or above, but one day I had a lady who was alert and oriented but the previous week was confused and on airborne trying to get out of her room (Her fall score was high then). Her fall score was only a 3 the day I had her but the charge nurse wanted me to stay in the bathroom with her until she was done and back in her bed. WHY? And then they complain when you aren't out the door at 7 pm and clocking out.

[sameasalways, ASN, RN]

We've had that for a long time. It's fabulous. Why would we ever expect housekeeping to clean things? Isn't it obvious that's the nurse's job?

Haha I wonder if the hospital has yet done the math to figure out how much they are paying RN's to clean IV poles every day throughout the entire facility? Nice.

[tntrn, ASN, RN]

The PTB in our corporate offices sent out an infection control memo that said we should be cleaning things like poles, bp cuffs(before each pt had their own) as soon as we enter a room. You know, while we are introducing ourselves, talking about plans of care. They said it would be reassuring to the patient. I am saying I, if a patient, would be asking WHY that wasnt cleaned BEFORE it came into my room.