Re: Hospital or Hotel? Originally Posted by carolbear 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.
Good point, this won't just happen when they go to LTC, it will happen if they go to another facility that does not offer the frivolities. The PTB do not have to deal with the fall-out they create, and what they are creating is an overindulged, pampered, self-centred, spoiled clientele with the most unrealistic expectations regarding the staff providing their care.
Originally Posted by IndyGal
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.
Indy, as it stands now, it is often the nurses that are the first to hear the request/complaints of their patients. That will never change, even with a conciege provided for them to call. In fact they will probably want the nurse to call for them to get that Starbuck's, and probably reheat that same Starbuck's fifty times before they finish it. What you will find true within any facility is that when other departments are short-staffed or busy, it gets dumped onto the nursing staff. The same would be true with a conseirge service, if they were short staffed or busy, it would be the nurses who would be expected to pick up the slack. The bigger problem is explaining/educating the public as to what the nurse's role is during their recovery. We are there to facility their recovery, monitor their condition, implement care designed for their benefit, etc. It is also not only one patient that we are there to provide this for, we have to coordinate the care of all our patients and prioritize that care. What we are NOT THERE for is to wait on them hand and foot over frivolities.
Nursing News