Buying your own equipment?

Nurses General Nursing

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I am a new RN working on a very busy subacute rehab floor in a LTC facility. My floor has one VS machine for 41 patients, and I work with one other med nurse, so we're constantly running back and forth to get the VS machine. I have no issue doing manual BPs and pulses, but the only floor thermometer is connected to this unit, and its persistently broken. We've complained about this for weeks and nothing has happened. We usually end up running to another floor, borrowing their thermometer and running around like crazy trying to get temps on all the patients. I've already purchased my own fingertip pulse oximeter because I give so many nebulizer treatments. I'm thinking about buying my own tympanic thermometer but I feel stupid buying something out of my own pocket that my facility should really be buying for the floor. But NOT having a decent thermometer and having to run around looking for one is causing me even more stress! I'm ready just to bite the bullet and buy it (it does not require probe covers so it won't be a continuing expense). What would you do? Have you ever bought your own equipment for work?

Ok Playing devils advocate here :) ..What about weighing the legal risk of using your own equipment versus the legal risk of being unable to get a set of vitals in a timely manner when it counted. In the case of some 'sentinel' event occurring I do not believe it would be an acceptable excuse on your part to say 'we didn't have/couldn't find it/ it didn't work properly'.ect. They would want to know then what steps you took to fix the issue. Plus I bet all that time you spend hunting equipment takes your attention away from what is going on with your patients..their is lots of personal legal risk in that too.

Grrrrrrr Huge Gripe of mine!! All the money that floats around in healthcare, spent on dumb S@#$...you think they would see the vital sign equipment as a highly important expenditure. I have worked soooo many places where you could not locate a good blood pressure cuff to save your life!

I also own my own Pulse Ox. Guess what? Their have been several nights where I was thankful I had it as the other Pulse OX broke at 4am.

I did make sure that it was FDA approved and safe to use on peds and adults, and I kept the box/instructions.

Plus...despite the legal 'risk'....I would wonder how many nurses actually have ever been sued or lost their license for using their own equipment (good) equipment.

Personally, if shelling out a few bucks makes my workday easier (x40hours/week x 52weeks) then I have no problem doing that occasionally.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Rehab.

Thanks for the input everyone! I'm working tomorrow and Tuesday, then not again til the weekend, so I'll continue to complain about it to management and put some pressure on my charge nurse to make a change. The floor has simply been really stressful lately and I'm trying to make it easier on myself in any way possible, and not having to rely on faulty equipment will definitely make things easier. But I definitely agree with all the points offered and will consider them carefully.

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

Where I used to work (one of the reasons I don't work there anymore) we routinely didn't have enough VS equipment. I mean, you can manual a BP, but a pulse ox? You gotta have that equipment. We had someone going down the tubes and we were stealing the VS machines from the other floor to find out what this person was doing. The doc came in, wanted a stat O2, and of course, we had to go to the other floor, beg for it, find where they'd hidden it, and then run back to our floor with it as fast as we could. Doc pitched a fit because it took so long, and when he found out we had no -- NO -- functioning pulse ox on our floor (and after the pt was stable, we showed him the multiple equipment failure/request for replacements we'd put in over a period of weeks), he went ballistic. He called the Medical Director of the hospital, who called pretty much everyone else. Came back the next night, we had 4 new VS machines.

Imagine that.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Rehab.
Where I used to work (one of the reasons I don't work there anymore) we routinely didn't have enough VS equipment. I mean, you can manual a BP, but a pulse ox? You gotta have that equipment. We had someone going down the tubes and we were stealing the VS machines from the other floor to find out what this person was doing. The doc came in, wanted a stat O2, and of course, we had to go to the other floor, beg for it, find where they'd hidden it, and then run back to our floor with it as fast as we could. Doc pitched a fit because it took so long, and when he found out we had no -- NO -- functioning pulse ox on our floor (and after the pt was stable, we showed him the multiple equipment failure/request for replacements we'd put in over a period of weeks), he went ballistic. He called the Medical Director of the hospital, who called pretty much everyone else. Came back the next night, we had 4 new VS machines.

Imagine that.

It's sad that something like that had to happen to initiate change. Unfortunately I'm a new grad only 3 months in, so I can't exactly up and leave just because we have no equipment. Right now I'm grateful to have a job!

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Specializes in LTC.

Seems like this issue of personal equipment is a great big grey area legally. Also, when I was still in nursing school, I brought my own b.p. cuff to clinicals (this was first semester nursing) in nursing home as they also only had one V/S machine and you could never get hold of it when you needed it. When my instructor saw that, she took my b.p. cuff away from me and put a big piece of bandage tape on it and wrote on the tape that it "was broken" (which it wasn't, it was brand new). She never explained to me about the grey areas of durable medical equipment. I wondered for years about that. Instructors, always explain to your students why you are doing something so they can understand your rationale.

Having worked in a nursing home as well, it appears that these environments are regularly equipped with only one V/S machine for a unit (40 patients in LTC) and that these machines very often fail (even after "going for repair" supposedly). I saw alot of nurses buying their own pulse ox's (which I eventually also did). One of the other problems is that it takes alot of time to have to run to another unit/floor looking for equipment and asking to borrow it. Over the very small amount of time you have to care for your 20 patients in LTC (figure an 8 hour shift, 1/2 hour for lunch mandatory, 1 hour sitting in dining room while they eat to ensure safety), that leaves only 6.5 hours to do two med passes, all treatments and any admissions or other issues that come up, not to mention documentation, ordering med refills, receiving med refills, etc. etc. Every second is precious but alot of those seconds are lost hunting for equipment to replace malfunctioning equipment.

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Specializes in FNP.

I won't speak for anyone else, but my post specified DME.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.

Carpujects, penlights, scissors, and a steth. That's it. I've wanted to buy a portable pulse ox, but I've refrained d/t posts I've read here, although I've seen docs with them.

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I have my own manual and digital BP cuff (our DON and ADON along with quite a few other nurses also have their own). I also have my own pulse ox (again, as do our DON, ADON and other nurses). No one has any issues with the nurses having and using their own. More often than not, the facility vital machine is totally broken, a certain aspect to it doesn't work, someone forgot to plug it in to charge or you have to fight with another nurse or 8 CNA's to find and use it, or the themometer has disappeared. I refused to get my own themometer, gets expensive buying replacement probe covers.

For me it was much less time consuming and caused much less stress to just have my own than wait for the other nurse or CNA's to be done with the BP cuff or the other equipment or to have it myself and have a hoard of people standing around asking over and over "are you done yet?". The majority of my residents were respiratory and cardiac so I am constantly getting an O2 sat or BP's.

Our house docs have even asked me to borrow my bp cuff and/or pulse ox, since they don't like the facility ones (hummm..you ARE the medical directors..maybe YOU should inform the powers that be that the equipment needs upgrading and updating). None of our docs or nursing administration has ever had any issues with nurses having their own equipment.

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Specializes in FNP.

"None of our docs or nursing administration has ever had any issues with nurses having their own equipment."

I am sure they don't! That's kind of the point.:rolleyes:

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.
"None of our docs or nursing administration has ever had any issues with nurses having their own equipment."

I am sure they don't! That's kind of the point.:rolleyes:

I could go on a whole rant about lack of equipment, supplies, and sometimes even meds (!), but I won't.

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In the same boat. When I was precepting there were VS machines ALL over the place. All I had to do was step outside a patient's room and there would be one plugged in right outside. I have no clue what happened, but after graduation, I became employed there and now there are 2 VS machines. The Aide's hide them and I can't blame them really. I had to go to the 4th floor to get a VS machine. I was so excited that day to have found one. I get to the patient's room to get my discharge vitals and SURPRISE! It's broken. It's broken. No defected tag attached. I wish that I could just buy my own VS machine and wheel it in when I come to work and wheel it out when I leave. :0 Healthcare.... It shouldn't take 10minutes to locate a VS machine and NO ONE should EVER have to leave their unit to borrow one...EVER!

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