CEOs outa touch, nurses to blame for not letting them know

[oramar]

http://nursing.about.com/od/nursingshortage/a/RNsVSCEOS.htm

[oramar]

Note to Peter Buerhaus PhD,RN,FAAN.....the last line of above article just about made my skull explode. Instead of exhorting CEOs to furfill their feduciary duty to the patients in their hospitals and keep themselves informed about what is really going on in the trenches, you decide it is the nurses job to do it for them. I know that Phds have a reputation for having their heads up their butts but really are you that clueless. First of all, CEOs know as little or as much as they wish. Second of all, I can't tell you how many nurses I know that suffered retribution for trying to clue managment in to the truth about the dangers to patients at the bedside caused by bad staffing. The effect of this returibution is to silence the rest of the nursing staff. Everywhere I have ever worked they have wanted one thing from me and that was for me to do my job and keep my mouth SHUT. People that do this stick around, people that don't are gone shortly.

[barbyann]

Everywhere I have ever worked they have wanted one thing from me and that was for me to do my job and keep my mouth SHUT. People that do this stick around, people that don't are gone shortly.

Yes, I agree, that is my impression of hospital nursing. Makes a floor nurse want to go work in the OR where you can don a surgical mask to remind you to keep your mouth shut all day as not to ruffle any feathers.

[DeLySh]

um ... ok

I guess it's the teller's responsibility to make sure the bank's CEO knows, too? Why is the healthcare field sooooooooooooo different when it comes to business as compared to corporate America?

DeLySh

[SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN]

Why is the healthcare field sooooooooooooo different when it comes to business as compared to corporate America?

Since you used banking as an example, I would like to point out that many current bank executives worked from the bottom up. So, they know what it is like to be a teller or at least supervise one. This is unfortunately not the case in Health Care. Thus, more people need to be like l will be who are running the show; a RN with a MBA (aka an executive with floor nursing experience).

[DeLySh]

Since you used banking as an example, I would like to point out that many current bank executives worked from the bottom up. So, they know what it is like to be a teller or at least supervise one. This is unfortunately not the case in Health Care. Thus, more people need to be like l will be who are running the show; a RN with a MBA (aka an executive with floor nursing experience).

You know, that makes a lot of sense but is no excuse. I just don't get a CEO that won't come out of his/her office to see what is going on in the business he/she is running. Makes no sense to me. How can he/she make any informed business decisions without knowing what is going on downstairs?

I guess I'll just be baffled forever. Very sad.

DeLySh

[kenny b]

"142 chief executive officers of hospitals as well as 142 chief nursing officers in hospitals. Buerhaus reported that approximately fifty percent of each group responded except for the CEOs. Only about 31 percent of the CEOs responded (less than one third). "

Okay, does this author have a problem with math or is this author slanting things? Just noticing that that'd be less than one-fourth and just curious.

[MrsWampthang, BSN, RN]

Our CEO and CCO have both been floor nurse in another life, so was the intake coordinator. They know how bad staffing, how unsafe and stressed the nurses feel and they plain don't care. All they care about is heads in our beds. The intake coordinator can be told that the staffing is to short to take another patient and she will still send in the admits with the full blessing of the CEO and the CCO, whom I might add spends a lot of time each day going through the schedule book seeing where they can cut staff, cancel people, and send staff home early. I have told the DON, I don't know how many times, that you just can't keep shoving patients in when you don't have staff to tend to them, but it kind of stops there. She doesn't have any control over how many admits we get. I was lucky the four nights I worked last week, because it was so quiet, it was scary. No one went bad, and most of the patients slept all night long. It was a good thing though, because we would really have been in bad shape had we had anything bad happen. I enjoyed those nights thoroughly. As to nurses being to blame for not letting management know, as someone said, they don't want to know, and the staff is told by management, not to tell patients or family members just what the nurse/patient ratio is. At one time, there was even a threat of write up for sharing the info. Whatever. I am always honest with my patients and families about staff to patient ratios and I dare them to fuss at me about it. Guess I am just frustrated about the mentality of upper management. I don't think it is worse where I work than anywhere else though.

Oh well, just my humble opinion,

Pam

[Crocuta, RN]

Note to Peter Buerhaus PhD,RN,FAAN.....the last line of above article just about made my skull explode. Instead of exhorting CEOs to furfill their feduciary duty to the patients in their hospitals and keep themselves informed about what is really going on in the trenches, you decide it is the nurses job to do it for them. I know that Phds have a reputation for having their heads up their butts but really are you that clueless. First of all, CEOs know as little or as much as they wish. Second of all, I can't tell you how many nurses I know that suffered retribution for trying to clue managment in to the truth about the dangers to patients at the bedside caused by bad staffing. The effect of this returibution is to silence the rest of the nursing staff. Everywhere I have ever worked they have wanted one thing from me and that was for me to do my job and keep my mouth SHUT. People that do this stick around, people that don't are gone shortly.

You know, I really feel sorry for nurses working in such horrible conditions. I work at a great non-profit community hospital where management really wants input from nursing, lab, housekeeping and everyone else. It *is* our job to keep the CEO informed and educated about what's going on in the trenches. We have a great culture of ownership and it's getting better thanks to the efforts and attitudes of people at every level of the organization. Any leader worth his or her salt should realize that they can't possibly understand the intimate details of every corner of the organization. It doesn't matter if that organization is a hosptial, a nursing home, a bank, or any other large operation.

I hope that some of you who are miserable and feel beat down will vote with your feet and find facilities that have moved out of the management dark ages. They are out there, and that is the *only* way that conditions will improve for nurses. When these places can't attract staff anymore, maybe they'll see the light. As long as nurses are willing to work like that, there's no reason for them to change.

[Crocuta, RN]

"142 chief executive officers of hospitals as well as 142 chief nursing officers in hospitals. Buerhaus reported that approximately fifty percent of each group responded except for the CEOs. Only about 31 percent of the CEOs responded (less than one third). "

Okay, does this author have a problem with math or is this author slanting things? Just noticing that that'd be less than one-fourth and just curious.

Ummmm... 31 percent *is* just under one-third. 25 percent would be one fourth.

[oramar]

Want to add a few things. Have to say that when I read the first part of the article I was thinking, "Oh, this is interesting, survey actually caught on to something I know to be true, good work". It was not until I read the last line of the article that I threw a fit. Since then it has occured to me that CEOs are very powerful, for the most part everyone tip toes around them. It may be no accident that this researcher did not take them to task. It could effect his opportunities to do further research. He might even have to do the unthinkable and get a real job.

[BBFRN, BSN, PhD]

Buerhaus has been doing nursing research for over a decade- and lots of it has been regarding staffing. He has written some good stuff, and is pro-nursing. He has taken hospital admin's and managed care policies to task in his articles.