Name a stupid policy/idea your facility thought would fly

allnurses Guide · 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.

Get out... no... way... wow!

I bet no one can top that!

tntrn, ASN, RN · May 6, 2012

No, what she says is true. I still work for same facility. Here's another one: require OB scrub techs to be in the facility even when there are no labor patients, but without even getting on/call pay. I kid you not.

canesdukegirl, BSN, RN · May 6, 2012

A former manager thought it would be a great idea to have our Operating Room Assistants (they cleaned the ORs between cases and got equipment for the next case) open the next cases in a sterile fashion...with no direction other than an hour long lecture on sterile fields.

nrsang97, BSN, RN · May 6, 2012

I worked at one facility that would hand you a stack of discharge call backs. We were expected to drop patient care and do them. That didn't last long. I suggested that they hire someone to do that.

I believe the OP has the winner with the housekeepers drawing blood.

tokmom, BSN, RN · May 6, 2012

A former manager thought it would be a great idea to have our Operating Room Assistants (they cleaned the ORs between cases and got equipment for the next case) open the next cases in a sterile fashion...with no direction other than an hour long lecture on sterile fields.

What? how scary is that?!

tokmom, BSN, RN · May 6, 2012

No, what she says is true. I still work for same facility. Here's another one: require OB scrub techs to be in the facility even when there are no labor patients, but without even getting on/call pay. I kid you not.

So you remember that too TNT? OMG, that was so stupid. Gotta love that certain facility, lol.

I did not know they expected the techs to be lazing around with no extra pay! What if they said no? My guess is they were shown their walking papers. :uhoh3:

Yep, certainly don't miss that place!

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · 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.

:eek: :eek: :eek:

Nope, there's no way I can top this one. And I thought it was bad to work for an Assisted Living facility that expected the director of nursing services (me) to wait tables in the dining room in a dress and heels with a napkin over my arm......

Zookeeper3 · May 6, 2012

Pure unadulterated open visitation. Kids, babies, sleep overs, food delivery the works.

My old facility is very proud of themselves for a 65% ICU turn over rate of the RN's in less than three months.:flamesonb

BostonTerrierLover, BSN, RN · May 6, 2012

I mean when you put this into the perspective of a nurse straightening up a room after a messy family leaves, refill the ice in the mug, and what ever beverage the patient desires (and can have), reposition them to comfort, start an IV, get their fluids and antibiotic going, (after you've made sure that no labs are ordered first). Then you finish their admission paperwork, administer a few PRNs to give them comfort, get the worst of the vomit in the bathroom floor, and measure their urine in the specipan, and add it to the DAR on the door, and fetch an AccuCheck, get a 53mg/dL, get a snack. Then once you've made sure it's up, and all is safe, you help elderly Mrs. Doe find the ABC News (the only news show that will do), and then turn it up loud enough for her to hear over her whistling hearing aids, and realize your now 15 minutes behind schedule, . . . and you have only satisfied 1 out of 6 patients, (and ones coming from ER to a room you haven't got to set up yet (your aid got pulled to a 1:1), and the desk is paging you to take report on this 98 year old full code with c/o chest pain and 4 more Co-morbities;. . . . . .

You realize asking someone else to multitask shouldn't make our jaws drop!!!

:redbeatheBoston

Jenni811, 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?)

sra27 · May 6, 2012

I think the housekeeper/phlebotomist policy is going to be the winner... However I do have a "good" one to share. A certain hospital that I worked at for a short time stated that their nurses were perceived as "lazy" by the general public. 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. The nurses were issued zone phones to carry, and portable computers with instructions to do all charting in the patients' rooms so that they and their visitors could "see you working". The nurses were also issued locater badges, to track were they went on the floor and how long they spent in each patient's room. (to make sure they weren't "sitting down being lazy somewhere") To add further insult: there was a room set aside for physicians to dictate and review their charts and sit down with tables chairs and computers, but it was only accessible with a physician's ID badge.