I'm not answering call lights

[imintrouble]

At least not as many as usual.

I'm getting memos from pharmacy and management about charting that's not getting done. The nurses who follow me are finding me the next day, and reminding me to take care of forms I failed to do on my shift. At my age, I'm afraid these oversights will be attributed to my advancing age, and my feeble mind. Instead of the truth, which is I don't have time to be the aide and the nurse both. I'm helping patients to the bathroom instead of crossing my t's and dotting my i's.

Where I work, they staff decent for nursing, but are eliminating the CNAs. Because I can do both jobs.

So. I'm letting that call light sound. Just because I'm sitting down, doesn't mean I'm doing nothing. I'm not stopping and filling ice pitchers, delivering coffee, or fetching warm blankets unless my nurse job is caught up. My fellow nurses have no problem letting their lights sound for 10-15 minutes. Neither am I.

If I'm to be reprimanded, suspended, or (shudder) fired, it's not going to be because I didn't waste that Dilaudid. It'll have to be because I didn't fluff a pillow. I can explain the pillow, not the Dilaudid.

[xoemmylouox, ASN, RN]

I know charting must get done, but we cannot ignore call lights. If the patient needs something non essential let them know you'll be back in a few minutes with it. If you ignore call lights something bad eventually will happen. Like an elderly patient gets out of bed because they need to use the restroom and no one has even responded to their call light yet. They are unsteady and fall and break hip/femur/vertebrae/etc. They now end up bedridden and develop pneumonia. They continue to decline until they succumb to sepsis. Yes it's a long stretch, but a very plausible scenario. Guess who they are going to come back to with questions. When they ask why the patient fell and the response is everyone was charting things will get ugly. And as always it'll be the Nurse who is punished not the facility.

[nrsang97, BSN, RN]

I know charting must get done, but we cannot ignore call lights. If the patient needs something non essential let them know you'll be back in a few minutes with it. If you ignore call lights something bad eventually will happen. Like an elderly patient gets out of bed because they need to use the restroom and no one has even responded to their call light yet. They are unsteady and fall and break hip/femur/vertebrae/etc. They now end up bedridden and develop pneumonia. They continue to decline until they succumb to sepsis. Yes it's a long stretch, but a very plausible scenario. Guess who they are going to come back to with questions. When they ask why the patient fell and the response is everyone was charting things will get ugly. And as always it'll be the Nurse who is punished not the facility.

You took the words right out of my head.

[CWONgal]

I am absolutely baffled that people would think it's ok to ignore call lights. As mentioned above see what they need and tell them you will assist them as soon as you can if it is for that extra blanket or whatever. You DO NOT want to be that person responsible for a fall because you chose to ignore the light. We all deal with job frustrations but at the end of the day you need to remember that could be you or your family member.

[brownbook]

Geeze people....look up the definition of hyperbole (like I had to.) A hyperbole is an extreme exaggeration used to make a point. As I read the post it was obvious the title was NOT meant to be taken literally.

Imintrouble HAS been answering call lights, spending time with her patients, etc. All management and co-workers see is that she is not keeping up with her charting, paperwork, etc.!

[HappyWife77, BSN, RN]

[pookyp, LPN]

Lol...

[thenightnurse456]

I understand your frustration but call lights have to be answered.. Promptly as possible.

Aid work is not just for aids.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

I totally get where you are coming from, but, as others have mentioned, we have to attend to the call lights in a timely fashion. Our dilemma is that a nurse's particular skill is not needed to fulfill the request 90% of the time!

We have a lot of nurse externs where I work, and they are put in CNA roles and counted in staffing. I have brought up to management that just one nurse extern position per floor should be put in a "customer service" role but also be allowed to toilet patients, just like the other nurse externs in the CNA roles. That particular extern would be primarily responsible for continual rounding, answering call lights, and either fulfilling the requests or communicating with the nurse on the patient's needs.

We had volunteer on one unit for a short period of time at my old job. The difference was noticeable, for both patients and staff.

[MatrixRn]

ShillaBSN,

You are right on the money. With the new CMS reimbursement for hospitals, if patient satisfaction scores go down so does the money that the hospital gets. I see the situation going one of two ways: either the hospital invests more into increasing satisfaction scores or they just reprimand the staff/manager when patients are unhappy on their unit. I hope the first one happens, but I know better than to expect that to be the norm.

Right, and no one is saying ignore a patient's need. The care will be given, however they might not get their jello as fast as they would like.

[CJ NV]

The only concern about not answering a call light in a timely manner is we might miss the opportunity to an initial assessment should someone find our patient with shortness of breath and difficulty breathing or acute chest pains or worst case scenarios respiratory or cardiac arrest,or a fall situation,patient on the ground for ? time duration which resulted to fracture and brain injuries.I'm just stating the facts...

[imintrouble, BSN, RN]

Thanks for the support. I need to clarify one thing. We don't have an intercom call light system. To answer a call light requires that I stop what I'm doing and walk to the room. It interrupts whatever it is I was doing. That takes more time than you'd think. It also interrupts my train of thought when charting.

At the start of the shift, I know the patients who are the sickest, and I'd never take a chance on their light. But the ones who just want to be pampered, I think I will.

[schnookimz]

Sometimes I think the cnas would be of more use if they were assigned a task rather than a patient load. For example: one CNA is in charge of toileting and just goes room to room knocking on the door and asking patient if they need to use the washroom or changing the patient in bed. Another CNA can be in charge of turning all patients and just goes around the floor turning/repositioning everyone. Another can be in charge of stocking and water.

I wonder if this would actually work....I came from a large floor so it could easily take 2 hours to get through the entire floor.