calling report to ct icu.. to the secretary?

[RNOTODAY, BSN, RN]

when your patient goes to cticu,from the or, do the people who answer the phone...take your report? like a person who is not a nurse?

they do this at my hospital, and it just doesnt seem right to me.... how can you give a nurse to nurse report to a non nurse? whats the point? i mean i know they get most of what they need from anesthesia anyway, but, this just doesnt seem right to me......is it? do other places do this?

[canesdukegirl, BSN, RN]

This happens at my hospital too, and they got dinged for it during a JCAHO visit. The circ in the room can call the secretary of the PACU and tell them the pt name, age, doc, procedure, and ETA. That's it. If we are calling report to an ICU or to the floor, we must call report to the NURSE taking the pt.

[RNOTODAY, BSN, RN]

thanks, i didnt think this was kosher.... so should i point this out to my manager ? they probably dont even know its an issue.. and the state is all over us right now for other issues

[mrsilly]

It's also a confidentiality issue. Only the nurse taking care of the patient either in PACU or a unit should know the specifics. The unit secretary doesn't need to know anything. HIPAA.

[CAORRN]

It should be a nurse to nurse report. I always call and ask to speak to the nurse who will be caring for patient so and so. Once again, not to harp on a subject, but its non-liscensed people trying to take over an RN's duties. The ICU managers are well as charge nurses have to know this is not appropriate, but probably encourage it!

[SandraCVRN]

Nurse to nurse report, we give the Unit Clerk other info. IE, we call when we go on and off bypass and give ht & wt.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Not sure how the hearts handle it, but when we are taking a patient to ICU who didn't come from there to begin with, we call the charge nurse and tell them surgeon, procedure, lines, and drips. Other than that, the ICU nurse gets a face to face report from anesthesia and the circulator once the patient arrives to the unit.

[mcmike55]

When we are closing, and know for a fact we are going straight back up to ICU, I'll give the nurse that was taking care of that pt a heads up type report.

I'll give the nurse a thumb nail report, including what we did, lines added or subtracted, vent or not and basically how the pt is doing. That way they can get the room ready, set up a vent, etc.

Once the pt is off the OR table, I'll call the ICU again, and say "here we come, nothing has changed". I'll give this "report" to the secretary or another nurse if they answer.

If something changed, of course I'll talk to the pt's nurse.

Once in the ICU, the anes. doc and I will give that nurse, resp. techs and others invovlved a full report.

If I was secretary, I would not want put in the position of taking a report on a critical pt. I won't put them, or me, for that matter in that position. Makes me wonder what's in their head if they think it's OK.

Mike

[RNOTODAY, BSN, RN]

well apparently, this only happens in our cticu's, not others, because I just started doing CT, and I just noticed it. My first case, a valve, the BA (secretary) -insisted she was taking report, because the nurse was busy. I argued with her, told her that I wanted to speak to that patients RN she told me that she takes report alll the time....but i insisted and got the nurse.... now we arent talking about patients who are extubated here... they are open heart patents, drips, always intubated, chest tubes, etc etc....

again, anesthesia takes the patient to the unit, gives a full report then..... but still? I am going to mention something to my manager.... and I hadnt even thought about the hippa issue... thanks for that....

like i said, i never encountered this in any other unit giving report... but i asked the people who do hearts all the time and they said, oh yeah, they take report all the time....

just another issue to add to my dysfunctional OR....lol

[GHGoonette, BSN, RN]

We only phone ICU to let them know we will be bringing them a patient within the next 10 minutes, no telephonic reports. And I don't even trust that information to non-nursing staff, I've had too many experiences of messages getting lost in hyperspace; then you end up arriving in ICU with no preparations having been made for the patient. Reports are given anaesthetist to RN, and then PACU or OR RN to ICU RN, face to face. How else can you document that the patient was correctly handed over? Sounds as if the ICU RNs have endowed their secretary with too much authority...