Anyone else feel like a robot reciting customer service scripts all the time?

[rntj]

Just wanted to vent at how stupid it is to have to recite the same script (AIDET, for those of you unlucky enough to know what I'm talking about) for every patient all the time, with the whole point being to implant the words "very good care" in their minds so that the hospital can get higher-rated patient satisfaction surveys. "Very good care" is the utmost highest level you can rate the facility on the survey. I am one of those people where, if I'm going to give you the highest possible rating, you better be darn near perfect. So I don't find it surprising if people do not choose that option. Does management really think if you keep saying "very good care" all the time that it will actually brainwash the patients into giving us that rating? I know all this has to do with the future tying of reimbursement to patient satisfaction surveys (which to me is ridiculous--if they want to tie reimbursement to anything, it should be the overall quality of clinical outcomes, IMHO) but I just feel like such a drone having to recite a script all the time. I believe my interactions with my patients should be organic and sincere and not some stupid script where I am trying to brainwash them. It just really irks me. Plus we get audited on them constantly. OK. Rant over.

[tntrn, ASN, RN]

You can pick up on what the word or phrase of the month is easily. Where I work, I heard the word "collegial" so many times in a short amount of time that I looked it up and found that my nurse manager wasn't even using it correctly.

[kcmylorn]

All this AIDET stuff is to get MR/MS CEO their big multi million dollar bonus. I had to chuckle yesterday on my way to work- I was driving behind the ******* truck delivering Lunch meat to the grocery store with the phrase in bold print on the back of the truck door- "******* brand, makers of fine beef, ham, chicken, and turkey provisions. Exceeding your expectations" Sounds alot like corporate run health care these days.

I'm curious to know if the nursing staff in Canada, England, France, Norway etc have to make complete and utter embarassing demeaning fools of themselves like we here in the USA are forced to with this robotic garbage scripting?

[tokmom, BSN, RN]

How did they expect you to use collegial in your spiel?

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

Shh! Its all part of the grand conspiracy to turn us into stepford nurses! Stay strong! Don't let them do it to you!

On the funny side, scripting is now offered to management as well so stay tuned the next time you talk with your boss to see if they are "scripting" with you! Too funny!

[tntrn, ASN, RN]

How did they expect you to use collegial in your spiel?

No, they were using it all time when they talking (usually down) to us.

[jmdRN]

I'm curious to know if the nursing staff in Canada, England, France, Norway etc have to make complete and utter embarassing demeaning fools of themselves like we here in the USA are forced to with this robotic garbage scripting?

Well, I can't speak for all of Canada, but in my neck of the woods (sub-urban, smallish hospital in Qc) we don't have any scripting, or "exit" scores from the patients. We still focus on pt care and not customer service

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Shh! Its all part of the grand conspiracy to turn us into stepford nurses! Stay strong! Don't let them do it to you!

On the funny side, scripting is now offered to management as well so stay tuned the next time you talk with your boss to see if they are "scripting" with you! Too funny!

Not a single doubt in my mind that my management team is scripted. If I heard the phrase "the hospital always errs on the employee's side" one more time as they were trying to explain to me why they weren't going to pay me for an extra hour I worked, I was going to punch someone.... Because clearly not paying me appropriately is erring on my side.

[martymoose, BSN, RN]

Why in the world would any RN recite such BS? Those who do (and thus encouraging the practice) should be ashamed of themselves. They tried it at one hospital I worked at but it didn't even get out of the first unit meeting.

Because in certain hospitals they know the emplyees are scared for their jobs. Employer has the upper hand....

very sad

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

I just love all this.....NOT. Our local Magnet hospital sends our residents back to us in all kinds of unstable situations after an ER visit, but on the discharge papers they like to remind us that they "Strive for Fives" in everything they do. Makes me wanna :barf01:

Hey, why don't they start with KEEPING the recently-ambulatory fall victim who suddenly can't walk and is complaining of hip pain? What do they expect an assisted living facility to do with a resident who just had a CVA and can't swallow? Why don't they bring in one of those fancy discharge planners with the alphabet soup behind their names, who can get him into a nursing home where he can actually be cared for properly? I'm sorry, but all the scripting and PG scores in the world can't make up for the stupidity and greed exhibited by hospitals like this.

FWIW, I never fill out the P-G surveys I get after each doctor's visit or outpatient procedure---I refuse to "collude with the oppressors" and participate in something I think is one of the worst things ever to happen to nursing.

And as for scripting: I cannot for the life of me understand why any professional with an ounce of self-respect would allow her/himself to be treated like a six-year-old who hasn't learned the social graces. Maybe it's just because I am old and cranky, but I don't think ANY job is worth that. This creeping indignity goes on because nurses don't demand the respect they deserve, and it will only get worse if they don't fight. Lord help the manager who ever attempts to hand me a laminated card with a bunch of stupid sayings printed on it and demands that I parrot it, word for word, with patient after patient. He or she is apt to find it in a place which was never designed to accommodate laminated cards, KWIM?

[LaterAlligator]

Yep, all of this is true where I work - it's a magnet hospital, we do AIDET, hourly rounding, etc. It's okay to some extent; as a CNA my shift overlaps the RN's shift change, so I do try to say something like "Your nurse Susie is going to be leaving soon, and Billy is taking her place. He's a really good nurse, and I'll still be here for several more hours so I can also help Billy get caught up on what's going on with you" or whatever. That's more because I see a lot of the patients getting confused and worried at shift change, and I want them to mellow out. But some of the other "suggestions" we've gotten during training were frickin' ridiculous. Carry around a giant bag of hot washcloths to give to each pt before I take their vitals? I'm lucky if I get a 10 second report on each patient before I go in there. I literally had to dig around in my memory for the ASL sign for "deaf" yesterday because no one had thought to mention to me that my patient was deaf and I needed to ask her if she was or not. We had bigger fish to fry than a hot washcloth. And I don't know the sign for washcloth, either, lol.

[9livesRN, BSN, RN]

We quit that, instead we do follow up calls to the patients home the day before the survey is sent....

[Caffeine_IV]

It has really gotten overboard with all of these customer service changes. I cringe when people say "wow this is like staying in a hotel." Yep that is what they want you to think. Who cares is your BP is steadily going up, your oxygen saturation is dropping as long as your ice pitcher is constantly refilled the moment you request, I provide juice and snacks to all your visitors.

I'm sorry that patient in room 200 fell from the bed, I was tied up in the nourishment room with coffee requests while the bed alarm was going off. How does that sound?

We have AIDET, hourly rounding, walking rounds with a script, room service for meals.