Primary Nursing and Relationship Based Care--need some input!

[queenjean]

Our hospital is attempting to implement both primary nursing and relationship based care.

We nurses are tearing our hair out trying to figure out what they want from us.

We already had a system in place where, if someone had a pt one day, of course they were assigned that pt again on subsequent days. This, apparently is not enough.

We have been given this vague goal that we are supposed to be "coordinating our primary pts' care." Yeah, because I wasn't doing this before? Am I supposed to come in during the day and attend all care conferences? What if I have pts for whom I'm not their primary nurse--am I just supposed to ignore that they might be a candidate for PT, or maybe call their primary nurse at 3 am, since she's not going to be back for a couple of days, and let her know that she needs to get that done?!?

Honestly, none of us can quite figure out how what we *were* doing before is different from what we are supposed to be doing now.

I was hoping to hear from some of you nurses who have had hospitals that practice Primary Care. How was it implemented? I'm looking for specifics. What did you do differently for the pts who were assigned to you as their primary nurse, vs the pts who were just assigned to you for that shift (for example, I might be taking care of 4 pts tonight, two of which I am primary nurse for. My others from the night before were discharged, so I have two for whom another nurse is primary, but she's off tonight. What I am supposed to be doing differently for my two primary pts that I'm not supposed to be doing for my non-primary pts?).

I'm working on my BSN, and so I have decided to focus on this for a class I'm in, and my final paper will address primary nursing. So, if you have any suggestions for articles, books, studies, etc, I'd love it. I also just want to hear about your own experiences with primary nursing, how it worked, what you liked, what you didn't like.

Thanks!

Jean

[Indy, LPN, LVN]

What in the name of peter, paul and mary is "relationship based care" anyhow? I thought if I had a prior relationship with the patient, that meant I didn't take care of them in the hospital.

[BinkieRN, BSN, RN]

Primary Nursing and Relationship Based Care are one and the same. Relationship Based Care is just the new politially correct term