Hospital or Hotel?

This article was also in my local paper. I had commented last week to co-workers that I had been welcoming my patients to the "**** Hotel", as we had just moved into a new unit complete with flat screened tvs in each room, marble floors, etc. I told them my new title was going to be "concierge". Doing everything I can to make our guests stay more comfortable! lol

I know someone is going to make the point that hospitals ARE a business, and after all if Hospital X doesn't offer something Hospital Y does, they will lose business to that one. And it's a decent point. Hey, maybe I'll make it

During my psych clinical rotation, our instructor took us on a walk-thru to the hospital's newly renovated rehab unit. We marveled at the difference, DRAMATIC difference, between the psych floor's stained and lowered ceilings and this shiny new unit's. We compared the beautiful new flooring to the tattered linoleum of the other. The freshly painted and papered walls with calming hues and themes, and the old, dingy, even frenetically-applied "paper" on the psych unit.

The instructor's point, one easily made, was that people admitted to this hospital's psych unit had nowhere else to go. There was no money to be made on that unit because of insurance limitations and the simple fact that there was no nearby competition for pts. Rehab pts, however, had the luxury of choosing a different hospital (one of several actually) and insurance was a very different story. The families of the rehab patients expected more and GOT it. The psych patients, well....they can manage with the funky dayroom couch and claustrophobic dining space.

Money talks

I applied for a concierge position at a hospital near me, but didn't get the job. (I thought it would be a nice position to have through nursing school.) This hospital does have a separate concierge staff to take care of the perks and special services... now how well that's explained to the patients, I don't know, but in theory the requests for Starbuck's should go to the concierge staff and not the nurses. Standing requests (for morning coffee or evening papers) are given to the concierge desk and handled by that department. Actually, I thought it sounded like a nice service. It's an ortho hospital so I imagine a lot of people are in a situation where they have limited mobility but are feeling well enough to be bored. It seems like patients who have a concierge number at their disposal might be less inclined to abuse the call light.

You raise good points, but I'd like to throw something out there. The most obvious abuse of the system is like we've already described: the "service staff" isn't running fast enough, or is short-staffed, and the medical staff is expected to pick up the slack. Problem #1.

Now how about this: the "standing order" for the coffee and morning doughnut is contraindicated in the patient who is due for testing later that morning and must remain NPO. Is it going to be the Service Staff who will be held personally responsible for NOT getting Mr. Smith his coffee and doughnut, making sure he doesn't get any? What if Mr. Smith knows he shouldn't eat but doesn't care? He'll claim ignorance later. When (not if, it's gonna be a when) the Service Staff screw up and deliver it anyway, is it going to be the nurse's head if Mr. Smith eats and drinks? Yupper. The nurse is now going to have to act as a police force or vice squad, checking for contraband items delivered mistakenly. And Mr. Smith's tests are postponed by at least a day, and the Head Honchos come down from 'nigh and go after the one who "let" him eat. Problem #2 and #3 combined.

Next: Mr. Smith, who has been getting his Starbucks and sugar treat all along, doesn't LIKE that he has to go without. He complains to enough people about his "treatment" that the Administrators who have no clue what healthcare is actually about put pressure on the medical staff to "arrange" their test schedules so as to be more accomodating.

Need I go on?

I HATE it when the term "customer service/satisfaction" is used..............

The thing that concerns me most is that currently we have a shortage of Nurses because of a lack of money to pay them.

We have inadequate staffing the whole way around from the CNAs to the housekeepers and dietary aides.

How do we have money for this "service" and it not cost the patient anything more than it already does?

I had a patient today ask for chocolate bundt cake w/chocolate frosting and B&J chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

And she got it

I'm thinking about admitting myself tomorrow...I sure could go for some chocolate sumthin or other

We also have valet parking...for visitors, patients, etc. Us staff have to trudge thru the melted asphalt to the staff parking lot

Think maybe this whole thing came about when we started calling patients clients??

And this is what they are going to use as a device to get "more business"??
"I picked General Hospital over St.Mary's,even though St.Mary's has better doctors,because Generals has Lodge Net." Pullese! And who do think is going to have to give these accommodations? And what about these people that are on state subsidized insurance like Medicade...."Sorry your insurance does not pay for this, you can have the yucky meal, and no ordering movies either, if your cold keep your hand off the room tempature control and grab a blanket"...or are they going to take from our pay checks for that too?

Yeah, I would like to know this too.

I think you can better generate revenue with paying money for high tech MEDICAL equipment, expanding services, paying more NURSES, etc.

I work at a large hospital that is a referral center for many things (intervential cardiac caths, cardiac surgery, high risk OB, NICU, PICU, etc). That's the way to make money! more medical services=more money.

Not all hospitals can be large medical centers, though. Money should be spent on nice accomodations in the sense that hte rooms should be private, large enough to move around in, and have simple comforts, like a pull out bed. Not on big screen tv's. Pay for more nurses-would you like to have a large screen tv with movies in your room, but have to wait 1.5 hours for your pain medication b/c your nurse is too busy b/c she has too many patients?

priorities, people!

O.K. I cannot believe my eyes that something as insane as this idea has appeared for our hospitals. My rationale for thinking this is insane? As we all know, geriatrics are what we are all in for in the 2000's and our fastest growing population. Also as we all know, hospitals are caring for large amounts of geriatric patients as it is. How do you think Mr. X and his family members are going to feel when Mr. X needs Long Term Care after being discharged from a facility as described in the article? Not too happy. We have enough to deal with in LTC as it is from our new residents recently arrived from Acute Care. They cannot understand why they don't have one nurse to 6 patients or one CNA to 6 patients. Oy vey, what a mess!! At least we won't have to worry about nursing taking the first budget cuts in the hospitals.......I hope.