Call bells! I am beginning to think call bells are the worst invention in the world.
Ring, ring ,ring.
Today, the call bells were crazy. Our secretary kept track. We had 97 call bells in 2 1/2 hours from 26 pts. Several retreat offenders. You know the ones. They ring, you tell them you will be there shorty, 30 secs later, they ring again, and again and again. Look lady, my kegs are short, I simply cannot get from the nursing station to you in 30 secs.
One pt keeps ringing because he's lonely. One just puts her finger and the button and holds it until her nurse gets there.
One pt rang to have her table cleaned off.
Good thing I wasn't playing the drinking game, one drink for every call bell. I wouldn't sober up until Xmas!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
How do you judge inappropriateness of the call bell? Even patients who are relentless in the bell have an appropriate reason....maybe they are scared, worried, anxious.....and they just don't know how to verbalize what they are feeling.
Welcome back Esme. I'm glad you are better.
In this time of sicker patients, shorter staffing and 24/7 visitors, scared, worried and anxious is neither an excuse or a reason to be relentless in the use of the call bell. I'm sorry you're scared, but the other patient's failure to breathe is the priority. I'm not unempathetic that you're anxious, but I no longer have the time to sit, hold your hand for an hour and reassure you. You have four visitors in the room; they should be doing that. (And I wish I had a dollar for every time a patient has asked me to sit and hold their hand when there are multiple visitors in the room.) My other patient just went into A Fib with RVR and I have to draw labs, draw up medication, call the doctor and set up for a cardioversion. Your scared, worried and anxious -- talk to your visitors or use the phone to call someone.
No one has said that family members should not be advocating for the patient, and no one has said that family members have no right to bring legitimate concerns. The topic is about those who press the call light two minutes after you've left and ask for another straw or ginger ale for all 17 visitors. Those requests (demands) aren't advocating for the patient, nor are they legitimate.
Please believe that nurses do discuss call bells and whether or not the patient in room 18 is using theirs appropriately. Believe that is the patient in room 18 is using hers frequently for small requests that could easily wait or be bundled, or that the family member standing next to the be could easily manage, room 18's call will go to the bottom of the priority list real quickly. Especially when room 19's call bell goes off and that patient has only used it once during his entire eight day hospital stay.
I -- and most nurses -- understand that patients are scared and lonely. However in these days with sicker patients, shorter staffing and 24/7 visitation, the visitors should be taking care of the "scared and lonely" as well as the volume on the TV, fluffing the pillows and feeding and toileting themselves. The nurses have all they can do to deal with sicker patients and shorter staffing.
I don't blame you for wanting to try to sanitize the implications of this thread. However, trying to use the right language to mollify is sadly ineffectual. Having had a family member post-op who could not reposition themself, was unable to breathe, and relied on the call bell to summon help, I find some of these posts rather appalling. In future, when my family members are hospitalized, as a precautionary measure I will make a point of asking the nurse for their first and last name at the beginning of the shift, and if they decline to provide that information I will ask for the charge nurse or manager to help me obtain this information. So, all this thread has done for me, and I am an RN, is to show me some nurses real sentiments, and convince me that my family member needs protection from some nurses when they are in the hospital.
I don't normally enjoy agreeing with Ruby Vee - but I'm with her on this topic.
Call lights are abused. Willfully, ridiculously abused. Even after the patients who press their buttons like video controllers because of uncontrolled mental illness (I'm not being glib - I'm talking about those with memory problems, etc) are taken out of the call counts, it's still mind-boggling high.
Hourly rounding/intentional rounding/cares rounding has done nothing to reduce the trivial, inconsequential calls. I can ask a pt the 5Ps, complete their requests. 3 mins later, the light's on, and they want their pillow fluffed differently, or their heel is crooked on the bed, or the flowers need watering. Who can defend that? Especially when they have family in the room?
Who can honestly say they deserve no scorn for believing it is perfectly acceptable to follow nurses into another patient's room for a Tylenol or new warm blanket, that ISN'T an idiot?
Let's not go the other direction, either, please!! The patients are really not just trying to break up the nurses gab sessions (I'm speaking to my experiences on night shift) We don't need to sit there and discuss what we think the patient needs or doesn't need, or gossip about their mental states. I had one co-worker call a patient a "*****" idiot" while in the room with them!!
I can tell you hourly rounding has gone a huge way to reduce my call lights. My floor has tons of IV medications. Many people are connected to 7 pumps. Beeping pumps are probably the most called for reason. I check my pumps every darn time I go in. My patients pretty much never have to call for a beeping pump unless an air bubble sneaks in, or they kinked off the tubing when they rolled over.
I also ask if they're anticipating wanting something for pain, nausea, or to help them sleep the first time I see them.
I can watch someone else have the same assignment a different night and they're running their butt off chasing lights.
How do you judge inappropriateness of the call bell? Even patients who are relentless in the bell have an appropriate reason....maybe they are scared, worried, anxious.....and they just don't know how to verbalize what they are feeling.
Believe me the people who use the bell inappropriately have no problem verbalizing their perceived needs. Most are clueless about how the system works. They each think they have their own private nurse because we are not allowed t tell them we have more than one patient and we are busy. I blame the management for this mess. Leaders who are incapable of leading.
Really? You'd be so rude as to interrupt me when I'm with another patient, for all you know is having a severe turn for the worse, for ice chips? You'd stalk me into someone else's room in which you have no business being when the use of the call light has been explained to you several times? *side eyes you* I'm not talking about putting on the call light and waiting patiently for either myself, another nurse, or the tech to come and assist you. Obviously in those cases, you would and should not be ignored, and we highly encourage the use of the call button, and YES, if you or your loved one is having a true emergency, by all means, come out and yell for immediate help.
You are incorrectly assuming I have no empathy for my patients or their families. You couldn't be more wrong. All I ask is that patients have families have some basic empathy for their nurse, and the OTHER patients and THEIR families and stop being so selfish and wake up and realize that a sprite is low on the list of priorities when the patient in the next room is having trouble breathing, or is in severe pain, or is about to fall out of bed due to confusion.
I've flat out had patients tell me, when I was able to get back to them (after prioritizing their needs taking safety and emergent needs into account) that they understand I have other patients, but then in the same breath expect me at their beck and call and to drop everything when they want it no matter what. They are a patient, not King for a day. I am their nurse, not their doormat or personal servant, and I have others I have to care for simultaneously. By all means, find me a cloning device and have me available five different ways at the exact same time. I have NEVER ignored a patient's light or their concerns. EVER. I find the insinuation that I lack care insulting when I do everything in my power to twist myself around as much as I can to accommodate these types. This is why I am ranting.
Ironically the patients who are the sickest are the least likely to use the call bell even when they need to. They are just too sick. I recall having major surgery and being really sick the day of surgery and I was too exhausted to push the call bell. I felt too weak to even to that.
Let's not go the other direction, either, please!! The patients are really not just trying to break up the nurses gab sessions (I'm speaking to my experiences on night shift) We don't need to sit there and discuss what we think the patient needs or doesn't need, or gossip about their mental states. I had one co-worker call a patient a "f****" idiot" while in the room with them!!
Not trying to "go the other way"....but inciting that night shifters just around and taaaalk talk talk talk talk. Yup. You got it.
I don't blame you for wanting to try to sanitize the implications of this thread. However, trying to use the right language to mollify is sadly ineffectual. Having had a family member post-op who could not reposition themself, was unable to breathe, and relied on the call bell to summon help, I find some of these posts rather appalling. In future, when my family members are hospitalized, as a precautionary measure I will make a point of asking the nurse for their first and last name at the beginning of the shift, and if they decline to provide that information I will ask for the charge nurse or manager to help me obtain this information. So, all this thread has done for me, and I am an RN, is to show me some nurses real sentiments, and convince me that my family member needs protection from some nurses when they are in the hospital.
blah blah blah. Same schtick you always pull. I pity any nurses who have to deal with you and your family - since clearly everyone is incompetent and uncaring compared to you.
How do you judge inappropriateness of the call bell? Even patients who are relentless in the bell have an appropriate reason....maybe they are scared, worried, anxious.....and they just don't know how to verbalize what they are feeling.
The answer to your question is in my post. It is inappropriate to ring the bell when the nurse has already answered it and is standing by the bed saying "how may I help you." That is one example.
Then realize that call bells are a necessary evil and patients will use them.
As a patient and spending the last 8 months in a hospital I can't emphasize enough that patients feel your anxiety and impatience and will use the light more because they are anxious. The call bell is the only way some patients can communicate with the outside world.....well at least outside of their room. While every nurse is busy..... not every nurse shows it at the bedside. I had nurses who made me feel I was the only patient and nurses that made me feel I was one of many....guess which one made me anxious.
I guess what I am saying....work on your poker face. Appearing harried to the patient doesn't breed confidence. I get it I really do but this last 8 months in a hospital.....ICU to the floor to rehab and back to acute care....was an eye opening experience.
Hold on one second. No one is saying get rid of call bells. However did you read that into it?
In this time of sicker patients, shorter staffing and 24/7 visitors, scared, worried and anxious is neither an excuse or a reason to be relentless in the use of the call bell. I'm sorry you're scared, but the other patient's failure to breathe is the priority. I'm not unempathetic that you're anxious, but I no longer have the time to sit, hold your hand for an hour and reassure you. You have four visitors in the room; they should be doing that. (And I wish I had a dollar for every time a patient has asked me to sit and hold their hand when there are multiple visitors in the room.) My other patient just went into A Fib with RVR and I have to draw labs, draw up medication, call the doctor and set up for a cardioversion. Your scared, worried and anxious -- talk to your visitors or use the phone to call someone.
This is not normal fear and anxiety. It is out of proportion and these patients should get psych consults to address their needs in this area.
Ruby Vee, BSN
17 Articles; 14,051 Posts
Welcome back Esme. I'm glad you are better.
In this time of sicker patients, shorter staffing and 24/7 visitors, scared, worried and anxious is neither an excuse or a reason to be relentless in the use of the call bell. I'm sorry you're scared, but the other patient's failure to breathe is the priority. I'm not unempathetic that you're anxious, but I no longer have the time to sit, hold your hand for an hour and reassure you. You have four visitors in the room; they should be doing that. (And I wish I had a dollar for every time a patient has asked me to sit and hold their hand when there are multiple visitors in the room.) My other patient just went into A Fib with RVR and I have to draw labs, draw up medication, call the doctor and set up for a cardioversion. Your scared, worried and anxious -- talk to your visitors or use the phone to call someone.