'cattle calls' in ER waiting room?

[BaptistBites]

Ok, so in order to eliminate what management refers to as 'cattle calls' by nurses calling pts back from the waiting room the triage nurse now scribbles down a description of the pt on the chart, usually something like dark hair, purple shirt ect. So when the nurse goes out to get the pt she doesnt have to yell their last name but instead hunt for them and then approach them personally. Every ED Ive ever worked just called names, same with doctors offices. I understand this may seem more polite but I feel like a fool standing there looking around a packed waiting rm for my pt! Other pts look at me crazy cause like I dont know what Im doing. I also feel like its a waste of the triage nurses time to have to write down a description of every single person. We see up to 200 pts a day! Is anyone elses ED doing this?? Any takes?

[tainted1972, ASN, RN]

I do not work in the ER. However, I took my child to an ER a few months ago. They gave me a pager that vibrated and lit up when it was her turn.

I always worry about my name being called while I am in the bathroom. The pager eliminated that problem! :)

[Rickbos]

We used to use pagers but 2 or 3 times a day I would "beep" the next patient and wait & wait & wait, and "beep" again ....but nobody would respond. I swear someone's garage door in the neighborhood was opening and closing instead.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

Here's a suggestion to take to your manager: Beepers that light up, like at restaurants. Your hospital could pay Chili's a million bucks to teach your staff how to give good customer service with them.

HAHAHAHA to funny. Right before I read your reply the first thought that popped into my head was those little coaster buzzers that restaurants use! Or they can pull a number like at the DMV.

[mwboswell]

This is exactly why HIPAA has become the monstrosity that it is. HIPAA was never designed to make people fearful to mention someone's name. It was designed so that insurance companies couldn't screw patients over. Somewhere in the mix, people decided that this meant that you couldn't even call a patient by name within earshot of anyone else. Ridiculous.

I say that your nurse managers could find any number of more productive things to go on a crusade about. Calling names in the ED waiting room is NOT a HIPAA violation, and I have never, ever heard a patient complain about this process.

Unless you standard practice is to call out, "Mr. Smith with the chief complaint of pus and blood coming out of your member, please come to the triage room". Then you might want to change things up.

My hat is off to you!

You truly get it - unlike a LOT of admin/mgr types.

Yes, people are so "hippa-paranoid" they have morphed it in to something it was never intended to be and I DOUBT many of the admins/mgrs that implement these "hippa-cratic" policies have never read the original legislation! Also, I'm afraid many of the Hippa-compliant consultnant firms are mere hippa-fear-mongerers doing nothing but ensuring their continued contracts to provide hippa-compliance servicees!

NEWSFLASH: as Nurses, we have ALWAYS been legally bound to patient privacy! Hippa didn't change a thing for us at the bedside. GREAT POST!

[Rob72, ASN, RN]

Heck, just set up seperate admissions windows:

Chest pain

Flu & Cold

Foreign Object in Bodily Orifice...

[Roy Fokker, BSN, RN]

I'm not a set of initials.

And I'm MOST certainly not a blessed "number" - for I'm neither cattle not slave.

Call me by my given name, please.

Don't let "laws" and "protocols" stop you from being decent to others.

cheers,

[sharpeimom]

heck, just set up seperate admissions windows:

chest pain

flu & cold

foreign object in bodily orifice...

:rotfl: but you forgot a category... :smackingf

4. the idiot who has 12 people arriving for a business dinner at her house in about 15 minutes and is still dicing veggies with a very sharp knife and manages to cut the tendon in her thumb and absolutely

will not stop bleeding, despite pressure and a clean dish towel, and bleeds all over the bossy old lady in the w/r who is determined to look and see if i'm (yep! me) "really bleeding so much or just faking it.":eek: