Crushing Burden of Regulatory Compliance on Healthcare

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Specializes in ER.

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Over and over I have seen hospitals spend vast amounts of resources and time on achieving Regulatory Compliance. Often the rules seem to have been cooked up in an office by officials who are very far from the bedside. The formulas that these people are using to develop policies seem highly flawed.

Some of the charting requirements are extremely cumbersome. Inconvenient workplace modifications and barriers turn the workplace into an obstacle course. Workers have many other requirements such as online education that often is meaningless, much of it being driven by regulatory and legal forces.

These burdens make the delivery of care much more difficult, without much tangible benefit,  except in what seems to be merely a theoretical way. Making systems more and more complicated each year doesn't lead to better outcomes. I'm not seeing that anything will be changing in the near future. Instead I think the burden will become too much to bear for the system at large.

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Specializes in OB.

Agreed.  American healthcare is a hot mess.  The bloat/red tape/inefficiency on the non-patient care end is astounding.

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Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.

Amen. It's so litigious and fear-based.

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Specializes in ER.

I think I am getting ready to bow out and just get a part-time job somewhere. I have my finances in pretty good order generally. I'm in demand but I feel like I have reached optimal crispiness, and am done in the near future.

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Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.
52 minutes ago, Emergent said:

I think I am getting ready to bow out and just get a part-time job somewhere. I have my finances in pretty good order generally. I'm in demand but I feel like I have reached optimal crispiness, and am done in the near future.

There definitely comes a time! Best wishes ?

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Specializes in ER.

Another thing is, it doesn't seem like these masks are going away. I personally feel like the materials in the masks are microfibers that are dangerous to inhale.

I got the vaccine, I did it for the greater society. I still have to wear a mask, or at least make a show of it. On the personal front I really think it's better if I continue to get exposed to the Coronavirus. I've had the vaccine and I should also start mounting my own immune response. Humanity has done this over the years and has gained a lot of resistance to formally hazardous microorganisms.

This time of history is a great time to exit healthcare for good...

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JCAHO is a complete sham!  Through my tenure in nursing, I've been through many audits at the various hospitals I've worked at.  This dog and pony show is all in the 'guise' of improving patient safety....  One year, it's almost a complete preoccupation in refrigerator temperatures, the next time, it's restraint documentation!  Give me a break, really? Really?  None of these commission pencil pushers ever ask the hard questions-those that directly and consistently impact patient outcomes, I.e. nurse/patient ratios, retention of experienced nursing staff ....  Like Emergent, I can't wait to bow out also and

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Specializes in ER.
34 minutes ago, morelostthanfound said:

JCAHO is a complete sham!  Through my tenure in nursing, I've been through many audits at the various hospitals I've worked at.  This dog and pony show is all in the 'guise' of improving patient safety....  One year, it's almost a complete preoccupation in refrigerator temperatures, the next time, it's restraint documentation!  Give me a break, really? Really?  None of these commission pencil pushers ever ask the hard questions-those that directly and consistently impact patient outcomes, I.e. nurse/patient ratios, retention of experienced nursing staff ....  Like Emergent, I can't wait to bow out also and

Well spoken. I'm getting too old for this. 

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Specializes in UR/PA, Hematology/Oncology, Med Surg, Psych.

In my job I do clinical note auditing to find the medical justification for particular testing, surgeries, etc. I frequently find that the notes don't include a date of service or even the patient's name, nevermind the actual reason they are being treated and the primary diagnosis. What I do find is a lot of unrelated items; fall risk, domestic violence risk, suicide risk, depression score, etc. while I can't even find the physical exam, PMH, PSH, recent vitals, related testing, and what's actually being done for the chief complaint. I realize that the questionnaire info is important (and is required by regulation/Joint Commission), but seriously, when someone is in the hospital for a GI bleed, I need to know the H/H, not the depression score.  Or if the patient has sepsis, I need the WBC count and lactic acid levels, along with their vitals and prescribed inpatient ATB, not the domestic violence risk score.  It appears that all of these regulatory questions are taking priority over the documenting of the actual pertinent medical information. 

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
9 hours ago, Emergent said:

This time of history is a great time to exit healthcare for good...

Amen. It deems many things have run the gamut and are no more like they once were.

Nudge nudge. Wink wink.

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Specializes in ER.

I think I need to cut down to 4 shifts a month 

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Specializes in Tele, ICU, Staff Development.
10 hours ago, Emergent said:

Well spoken. I'm getting too old for this. 

LOL    My ability to tolerate nonsense is gone and I can't find it.

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