Do you cut corners in your daily nursing practice? Or do you do everything according to the 'book'.
Do you police yourself in your everyday care of a patient, what do I mean by police yourself? I mean always follow the correct procedures no matter how busy you are, and when tempted to deviate never vary because you know it is wrong and that errors do often occur.
When you are in a patient room alone, by this I mean no other staff member watching you or a patient who is oblivious. Do you behave as though you were being scrutinized?
Do you manage that patient care the right way, because it is the correct way.
Do you manage your hygiene, the correct procedure for changing IV fluids, remaining clean/sterile when changing dressings?
Do you always wear gloves, do you change your gloves between procedures, do you wash your hands.
Or do you occasionally forget to wash hands, not follow guidelines for procedures. Cut corners because you think nobody is looking, even though you know it is wrong but do it anyway?
Do you reflect on your care after every shift? Reflection is old fashioned now, but after every event I do reflect on how I managed that situation, and if I could have done it better.
Often a corner is cut, nothing bad occurs so the next time you give yourself permission to do it again because you tried it once and it was OK. Soon the corner cutting becomes a habit and you no longer remember that you are cutting corners because it is part of your daily practice.
The reason I ask you, is because there are professional health care staff who do cut corners on a regular basis.
We do see frequent mistakes made because we don't take our time.
Medications mistakes being common
So many are made, but I wonder how many are actually happening and caught, and how many are never caught?
How many of you will go into a room, ask the patient her name, check her name band and then ask what she is allergic to? Every time you give that same patient her medication.
Do you tell the patient what medications she is receiving? Do you discuss the side effects or check if the patient actually understands what meds she is receiving and why?
Do you watch every patient take the meds you gave them? Or do you give them the pot and walk away?
Remember when you sign the MAR you are saying the 5 R's are correct, but you are also saying you saw the patient take the meds you gave her?
How many times have you been into a room and seen a pot of medication sitting on the side!
Do you always do a head to toe check, or do you skip some parts of it?
You know that these things I mention occur on a daily basis and often go unchecked until a major disaster occurs.
Often causing patients an injury, we have an obligation to provide each patient with high quality care always.
Ask yourself when you are tempted to cut a corner, would you approve or condone this if it was your relative or meaningful other?
When a mistake happens, it is often something that could have been avoided but it is something which will live with you for a very long time.
I am not your judge, I am not your conscience and I am only playing devil advocate.
Please please please do not cut corners because in the long run you may have cost somebody a lot more time, than you spared.
