Volunteer turn teams?

[wish_me_luck]

Just curious, do they exist? One of my biggest pet peeves if not done and something that I really tried to stay on top of was turning patients. I have days where I think if I did volunteering in a hospital, I would just volunteer to be the second person (the other person being the tech/nursing assistant) to go and turn patients that needed it. I don't know if that is allowed or not (volunteer wise, I mean).

All these people who want to shadow nurses and volunteer in a hospital, could they do this? Is it considered something only within a scope of practice?

It's just a peeve of mine. I like my patients turned. Definitely decreases pressure ulcers.

[SHGR, MSN, RN, CNS]

OP, maybe this will help your situation: I think sometimes people make too big a deal out of turning. Like it means turn on all the lights (ok, I worked a lot of nights), fling off all the covers, and flip the person from all the way on their right side to all the way on their left, awakening them fully to where they cannot fall asleep again, or even making them anxious. I got to be the master of the "quarter turn." -- adjusting the pillow behind so that instead of being turned like 90 degrees on their side, they would then be turned 70 degrees. This was validated by our WOCN too- the point is, you want to change the pressure points, not flip the person like a pancake. This WOCN believed in the full flip every fourth turn, really, as long as you were reasonably changing the pressure points, and you really should be changing these much more than q2 anyway.

[threebrats46]

You dont have to turn,you can alleviate pressure points by doing things like putting pillows in between knees,under feet..etc

So if a volunteer can even do that until the nurse is able to come turn that helps,but there is too much liability anyways!.

[wish_me_luck, BSN, RN]

Ok. thanks.