Patients on the telephone

[firstyearstudent]

Our hospital is, in my opinion, overly focussed on "customer service." I don't know how many times I have gone into the patient's room to give drugs, do a procedure, do an assessment, draw a lab, whatever, and the pt. is just talking on the telephone, sees me there, and just ignores me.

I don't have time to keep coming back and seeing if the patient is "available." It's a hospital, not a spa.

Have you seen this a lot where you work and what do you do about it?

I had a guy yell at me recently because I asked him to get off the phone, after waiting 5 minutes, to take oral meds and get a respiratory treatment.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

What irritates me more are those phone calls that get forwarded to my phone from the front desk from family members while I am in the middle of patient care, asking me why their loved one is not answering the phone.

Oh, don't even get me started on phones---last time I looked, my name badge said "RN Charge Nurse", not "Receptionist". :angryfire:angryfire:angryfire

Like most LTCs, all the office folks at mine make a beeline for the exit at 1700, and they don't work weekends. That's fine, but where is it written that the NURSE has to field all these stupid phone calls? I don't mind doctors' calls, of course, and I will drop everything willingly to talk to someone with a desperately ill or dying family member. But why can't whoever is sitting at the nurse's station or close to the hall phone handle the non-essential calls? Especially when I'm up to my eyeballs in someone's Stage IV decub and the caller only wants to check up on a resident for the 4th time this shift, or to have staff go turn a resident's cell phone on and stand there for Lord knows how long while they talk because they can't work the damned thing.

I don't have time to play secretary---if I wanted to spend my days saying things like "Good afternoon, you've reached the Shady Rest Nursing, Rehabilitation and Last Stop Before Death Center, this is Marla, how can I help you?" I'd have gone to business school. Besides, I'm eternally flummoxed by multi-line phones......I'm forever dropping calls, transferring them to the wrong part of the building etc., and I resent having to stop in the middle of more important work to shuttle the cordless up and down the hall twenty times a night.

Ahhhhhhhhhh...........that feels better. Thanks to the OP for bringing up the subject!

[firstyearstudent]

While I guess I can understand that being ill and in a hospital could be an 'inconvience' (odd word since it's THEIR health afterall) to the patient and/or their families, it is my duty to provide the best nursing care that is needed for them AND all of my other patients to heal. Sorry if I sound mean, but my nursing priorities are more important than their personal telephone call. I would be polite, but really I do not have time to wait for personal phone calls to end to do my job. I think very logically about my time, the time I spend waiting for someone to finish a call is time I will not have to perform other duties. I am responsible for other patient's nursing care and also for my own time management. Personally, I consider it VERY rude for someone to continue a personal phone care when a nurse/tech/Dr. is their to provide them treatment. But I also find it rude for people to continue cell phone chit-chat at the bank teller, at a cashier, etc.[/quote']

I totally agree with you. If a patient is DNR, everything changes. I do everything at their convenience and their families, but if a patient is being treated medically I want to be as efficient as I can and I should have their cooperation. It's a hospital!!!!

Some people are just oblivious about this phone thing and/or how pressed staff is for time. I don't want to be rude, but come on. Just the other day I had a patient with pain of 10/10 with probable attack of pancreatitis. The doc and I run around like we're on amphetamines to get his pain under control and get him stat x-rays, etc., then while transport and I are waiting at the door to take him down he continues to talk on the phone for 2 or 3 minutes giving his grandson directions on how to get to the hospital to visit him! We're all there jumping up and down trying to get his attention (he is so intentionally ignoring us). His wife is yelling "get off the phone, honey." His daughter is saying, "Dad, give me the phone. I will give him the directions." If it was the hospital phone I would have been tempted to take it out of his hand but it was his cell phone.