Walkie Talkies on Your Unit?

[NursingAgainstdaOdds]

...or some other staff-to-staff communication device?

My sis recently started working an ED that uses shoulder-mounted walkie-talkies (a la cops). I have to say, I'm so jealous! I spend so much time in my day trying to find an aide, trying to find a specific nurse, etc. I can imagine so many reasons why this would be incredibly useful on our unit, especially for a couple people I can think of right off who frequently *disappear* into their own little holes in the space-time continuum. (A couple of whom HAVE been overhead paged after a pattern of disappearances.) It also strikes me as being much safer for nursing staff and patients, when immediate help is just a call over the walkie away.

My thoughts on this are that a more closed system, like an earpiece w/ mic (a la Old Navy:lol2:) is more appropriate in a med-surg setting because of a potential HIPAA issue. Me, I prefer a hands-free means of communication. Right now we have cell phones (which weigh like 3lbs, I kid you not), which inevitably ring in our pocket while transferring an unstable pt or doing something similar. I do wonder if a constant chatter would drive me batty, but at the same time I really feel the positives would outweigh the negatives.

Wonder how I could talk my manager into this one ... it's gotta have a customer service angle somewhere...

[not now, RN]

We all have a phone on our unit (nurses and CNA's) and of course it rings at the most inappropriate times. If I'm in the middle of something I just don't answer it. I do feel rude telling a patient "can you give me a second?" in the middle of a conversation because my phone is ringing. I also don't like that we post our number (nurses and CNA's) for the patients to call us whenever they need something. Our NM says it cuts down on the number of times the call light is used (duh) and makes the patient feel more comfortable.

I do like that I can go down to lab/pharmacy/ect and can be called if something comes up.

Ha, my list of likes is so much shorter than my list of dislikes.

[jenrninmi, MSN, RN]

I miss the phones we used in med/surg. Our phones could answer call lights (for your patients), it's easy to get help in a room if you need it instead of leaving the room to get help, I liked it a lot. Where I'm at now, we just use pagers. Sure, we know when our patients use their call light because it goes to our pagers, but I have no idea what they want until I go in their rooms. What good does that do?

[AngelfireRN, MSN, RN, APRN]

:angryfireWe used them (walkies and telephones) in 2 hospitals I worked at ( I was agency). I absolutely hated them! To me, there is nothing that says more to a patient "You don't matter." that answering the phone while trying to take care of them. Then, it never failed, every time I'd tell the dinklepuss secretary that i was tied up, the next time the call light went off, right back she would call. If you turned the phones off so you could get some peace, they'd either hunt you down or have a new phone waiting for you at the desk when you came out of the room, because "yours isn't working".

With the walkies, if you left yours on your med cart, you'd come back to find a sticky on it, "put in pocket".

Absolutely pointless.

[NursingAgainstdaOdds]

Yeah ... well, I share the genuine hatred of the cordless phones. We use them now, and it's not very helpful for reasons I mentioned and others as well. I still think walkies are a good idea.

[NursingAgainstdaOdds]

Also, I'm really not concerned with "looking like I work at McDonald's". I want a better way to communicate with my co-workers and find people when I need them. As it stands now, I can barely find our aides, and usually people working on the same unit don't even know when someone else is in a difficult or unsafe situation.

[JBudd, MSN]

Our new ER so spread out that charge has to carry a phone. If I'm at one end, and the radio goes off, they have be able to call me so I can assign the appropriate room. Its too heavy, and I just don't answer it if I'm in with a patient, I can look at the caller ID and know who to call back.

[mshultz]

When I saw this thread title, I thought it was r/t patients who were ambulatory and communicative

[ASSEDO]

I feel the same way about a beeper. I hate them! The only thing they are good for is to have someone beep you during a meeting, so you can make your excuse and leave. However, a nursing instructor may need a headset if she has students located all over the hospital.

[healinghearts84]

we have cordless phones assigned to us each day. its very convenient for patient care because we can just hook them on our pockets and go. however, it gets quite annoying because at any one time doctors could be returning pages, lab could be calling about a critical value, diagnostic techs, pt. families etc. especially since you have to excuse yourself because of hippa. i usually don't use my phone that much since i work the night shift, but sometimes when the mornings start picking up, i want to chuck it at the wall.

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

I saw nurses and aides using the Vocera system. It looked like a fairly user friendly system.

I work in a forensic facility where we wear "cop" radios for ICS reasons. They do work well but I think that they are very heavy. We don't have earpieces so we clip the mic next to our ears.

[jenrninmi, MSN, RN]

I saw nurses and aides using the Vocera system. It looked like a fairly user friendly system.

I work in a forensic facility where we wear "cop" radios for ICS reasons. They do work well but I think that they are very heavy. We don't have earpieces so we clip the mic next to our ears.

Our hospital will be getting Vocera within the next couple of months.

[teeituptom, BSN, RN]

Hope I never have to work with you. What do you do if these people come up to you IRL? Walk away? Wow.

Jessica

Nah, because of my age I just blame it on my old vision, and my hearing loss, both highly selective. Perfected this technique on my 7 kids. If they mentioned money or car or anything else, I never heard it.