Code of Excellence

[GardenDove]

Our hospital initiated a code of excellence last year. They also instituted a morale boosting positive feedback system. During this time, morale went down, workplace paranoia went up, along with an escalation of negative gossip and rumors. The gulf between management and staff widened, as our Hitleresque director of nursing used the code of excellence against some popular nurses.

People were promoted to management positions on what appeared to be their brown nosing abilities rather than merit. Unit managers resigned, we currently only have one original one left. Along with all this was the introduction of the patient as customer model of healthcare, with customer complaints being taken extremely seriously, even when they are entirely baseless. One nurse who is very well loved by the entire staff, and had been with this small hospital for 35 years, was almost fired 6 months away from retirement based on the complaint of an unbalanced woman who attacked her in the ER. Thank God we have a union.

Has anyone had any experience with these types of programs? Our nurses feel belittled and manipulated by all of this and the Code of Excellence is viewed with utter comtempt.

[muffie, RN]

well isn't that just yucky

bad enough to get through the day trying to do a decent job and then have that bs to worry about...yikes

my condolences

[GardenDove]

Now they are requiring everyone in the hospital to attend a day long inservice where they continue to try to indoctrinate us on this excellent program. It will be led by our hated director of nursing, the brown nosing director of employee ed, and the HR director. The director of nursing (a man), and ed gal are both emotionally volitile people with underlings who are loathed by the entire nursing staff.

Anyways, if anyone from my hospital is reading this thread, they will recognise my description of this scenario immediately. Management's stated intent is to change the workplace culture for the better.

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

Every time that I hear about "Code of Excellence", "Patient centered care", or "Performance Improvement Initiative", the programs always end up doing the opposite of what the words mean.

[muffie, RN]

are these clowns for real ???????????????????????????????????????????????

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

Every time that I hear about "Code of Excellence", "Patient centered care", or "Performance Improvement Initiative", the programs always end up doing the opposite of what the words mean.

The whole "patient as customer" thing is really unnerving. I do what is in the best interest of my patient's healthcare during their hospital stay. It is oftentimes NOT what the "customer" really wants.

The customer is always right. Patients, however, frequently aren't (or, for what it's worth, they might not actually BE patients, if they were doing the right thing in the first place).

This trend worries me.