Name a stupid policy/idea your facility thought would fly

tntrn, ASN, RN · May 6, 2012

i can't really top the housekeepers drawing blood. but our facility came up with the brilliant idea of nurses wearing "all white"that didn't last but a year when nurses all came with "yellow tinged" scrubs with pen marks on the pockets and unidentifiable stains. (personally, i think nurses did it on purpose to make a statment). it was the year before i was hired, so thankfully i got hired a couple months after they changed it to navy blue as it "looks more professional" (why can't administration just admit they were WRONG by requiring all white?)

That is coming back. Our admin, just a few months ago decided nurses would wear white because The Cleveland Clinic has that policy. We told them no. But did compromise by taking a vote by nurses who chose navy. It's all window dressing, as if looking professional changes anything.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · May 6, 2012

Just recently we were told we have to wear gloves and a mask to replace a bag of IV fluids. They finally realized that was stupid, but are still requiring it if the fluids are going into a central line.
How much compliance you think they're getting with that?

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".

tntrn, ASN, RN · May 6, 2012

Gotta love who count beans for a living!

JZ_RN · May 6, 2012

Require one of the 2 nurses on the floor to remain in the dining room while patients eat due to "family complaints" (Okay, and all her patients will get their meds a jillion hours late and she will be behind because of it?)

Mandatory 10 am meetings on every monday (yeah the 7p-7a people... none of us stayed for that and none of us showed up mondays we worked or even mondays off for that matter lolol)

Staff cuts because we had a low census on one floor... but they didn't cut any staff on that floor.... they cut MY floor's staff... when we had a full house.

Staff cust period because of the budget, then paid 18,000 dollars on a program that gives us all "educational information" like on "culture change" (which we don't do) and "healthcare worker drug abuse awareness" (I don't do drugs, that's all the awareness I need)

Not_A_Hat_Person, RN · May 6, 2012

Before I was a nurse, I worked at a coffee shop. One day, management decreed that if someone agreed to cover a shift, and they didn't show up, it would be a no-call/no-show for the employee who didn't show up AND the employee whose shift was supposed to be covered. That didn't last long.

When I worked in assisted living, the management decided to save money by not replacing dining room servers who quit. Instead, aides and nurses would "help" the dining room staff serve dinner. Serving could be very confusing; residents could have one of 2 entrees or the "light plate." Some people got lunch dishes at dinner (and vice versa). People would change their minds or their seats. Nursing staff received no training, and some of us had never waited tables. If a server called out, the charge nurse had to either draft someone to wait tables, or do it themselves. After trying (and failing) to play waitress one weekend, my boss and the dining room supervisor (I didn't know there was one) had a chat with me. I responded "So if I need a med tech, can I just pull a random server aside, give them the MAR, and say "You've get the first floor?" That ended when they revamped the dining room service.

After a lot of battles over scheduling, my manager started hiding the schedule. Our scheduler had a habit of changing peoples' schedule after it was posted, without telling them. Setting people up for an accidental no-call/no show didn't go over well.

HeartsOpenWide, RN · May 6, 2012

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.

That is illegal in my state.

HeartsOpenWide, RN · May 6, 2012

I work on a busy OB rural unit (no MD/CNM on site/demand). They took our ward clerk away, no OB techs, and then started to make us do our ordering. So we had to answer phones, order supplies and put them away, all while doing nursing care, sometimes on people delivering babies in the hallway! We finally go them to get us someone to keep our department stocked, but our new manager of almost a year now is still fighting to get us a ward clerk/OB tech.

Chixie · May 6, 2012

. To improve their image, the management decided that nurses (and nurse techs) were no longer allowed to sit down during their shift unless they were lucky enough to leave the floor for a lunch break (which almost never happened) or using the restroom.
The nurses' station was closed down and all the tables and chairs on the floors were removed, except for a single card table with one chair, a computer, and a phone for the secretary.

One of the wards in our hospital is run like this and apparently other wards are thinking about doing the same thing.

tntrn, ASN, RN · May 6, 2012

Are they going to take the desks out of the CNO and CEO offices?

JZ_RN · May 6, 2012

If they took away sitting during a 12-13 hour sometimes 16 hour shift except during pee breaks (like we get them) or lunch breaks (what are those?) I'd just unplug the computer and sit on the floor. RIDICULOUS.

Chixie · May 6, 2012

Are they going to take the desks out of the CNO and CEO offices?

:rotfl: when hell freezes over!!

Psychtrish39, BSN, RN · May 6, 2012

Viva I worked at a LTC where I was the medication and treatment nurse on a wing on swing shift and also expected to stop in middle of med pass and go serve residents in the dining room as part of my duties. I and others were supposed to take turns but that rarely happened. The residents were aghast that their nurse had to do this as well. I no longer work there thank Goodness... lol