Do Hospitals Get Prestigious National Awards for Poor Nursing?

[d'cm]

A member of my family was recently admitted to the hospital to have a procedure to repair a heart problem.

The hospital was brand new, and it had been honored as a Magnet by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Wow, I thought: The nursing must be outstanding.

During the 5-day hospital stay, I witnessed some of the most unusual nursing practices that I had seen in my 40-year career.

Read complete Article: Do Hospitals Get Prestigious National Awards for Poor Nursing? | Medpage Today

[TriciaJ, RN]

That is truly scary. Sounds to me like they hire young, new nurses with shiny credentials and minimal experience. Then they herd them into classrooms to indoctrinate them about scripting and other robot behaviours. Bog them down with endless documentation requirements; staff the floors so there are never enough of them to actually provide nursing care (or just respond to an alarm). Actively discourage any critical thinking or problem-solving. Make no provision for mentorship or even leadership. Some of these hospital staff will adapt to the robot style of functioning. Others will run away screaming and be replaced with more robots.

Hospitals get points for patient safety because they put an alarm on everything. But alarms don't make anything safe, just noisy. They pay people to invent things that are supposed to replace nursing staff. They only think they've succeeded. Money will change hands and the hospital will keep getting awarded accreditation, magnet status and the naked emperor du jour.

The rest of us need to eat our veggies, wear our seatbelts and pray we never get hospitalized.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

Yup, that's how things are now... almost everywhere.

During my time in LTACH, at least half of our clientelle got there directly because those poor souls were cared for by nurses (and doctors, too) who did things by the books, to the last dot, and provided "amazing customer service" instead of medical treatment.They followed every policy and every "gold standard" without ever turning their brains on, and got all "recognition awards" for doing so. Worse still, they convinced families that their loved ones received the best care possible, and only some ominous touch of destiny sent them to chronic life support with GCS below 7.

Even worse were those people from "quality control" who, supposedly, had BSN degrees but seemed to forget the basics of the basics after years of hunting down every one little thing they were made responsible to. My worst nightmare were about them descending in full rage and fury when a patient with cardiac history happened to be not put on two blood thinners, b-blocker and ACE/ARB "as per corporate policy". Meanwhile, I was trying to keep this poor soul from being transferred to ECU ("ethernal care unit") and praying about his b-blocker serum conc dropping below t1/2 so that I could get him off escalating doses of Levophed and fluids with his kidneys and liver failing already. And that was after I spent 3 or 4 hours hunting down every doc who ordered all that meds "according to gold standards" and explaining them why those standards were probably not applicable anymore.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

The rest of us need to eat our veggies, wear our seatbelts and pray we never get hospitalized.

Amen, sister/brother of mine!

[sevensonnets]

I think unfortunately this the new face of nursing. Scary indeed!

[brownbook]

I have been out of acute care beside nursing since 2000. Worked in ambulatory care surgical center, one connected to an acute care hospital. The other an independent ambulatory clinic. Didn't see anything like this in ambulatory care? So far all responders have agreed with the original posters point of view.

If bedside nursing is really this bad why aren't nurses shouting it loudly here on Allnurses or elsewhere that bedside nursing is a fake, a sham, a joke. Telling all family and loved ones to please, please, never go to a hospital?

I pray it is just a little over board. If it is 100% accurate I agree with your assessments,....I will never allow myself or a loved one to be admitted to a hospital!

[dogmombyday, RN]

While I'm sure this is the norm at some hospitals/clinics/offices, it's certainly not the case on my unit...but the author seems sure that this is the case everywhere, as he reduces what nurses do” to applying cardiac leads and fumbling to place IVs yup, that's all I do all day long. Apply and fumble, fumble and apply.

[AJJKRN]

This is the way of healthcare, some slowly but surely, other fast and furious. Now the customer service model rules the roost and expensive price tags are being paid to brands such as Magnet and Studer Group for mindless "suggestions" such as scripting and hourly rounding instead of efforts being focused on retention and safer staffing ratios.

My workplace just rolled out yet another tool to help prevent falls and straight up said that its intention is to take the nurse's critical thinking piece out of the decision. I don't know about you but for the most part I can walk in the to a patient's room and within minutes (most times instantaneously) know whether or not the patient is a fall risk or not...but my educated "opinion" doesn't matter anymore as long as I initial the patients board every hour with a dry erase marker...

[Davey Do]

I just do not understand this mentality of no empathy. On top of that, Nursing is a job just like any other job: You provide a service and are paid for performing that service.

Recently here on AN.com, one COB called a complaining new Nurse a snowflake. I had seen that term used before and looked it up on Wikipedia. Snowflake is an accepted term for the new generation of thin skins.

Which brings me to a point: If the newer generation is so quickly to cry out when they are, in some way, discomforted, then why can't they understand that others feel discomfort and require attention?

I am a self-centered old bastard. Sometimes I do my job a quarter-hearted because half-hearted is a quarter heart too much for me. Sometimes I do my job because I don't want to have to deal with the ramifications of not doing my job. But I do not understand not providing care because it is my job and because someone requires that care. That I do not understand!

[JKL33]

So, this guy seems fairly far removed from reality and is part of the problem if he literally held Magnet in such high esteem prior to this experience. One of the commenters told him so:

09.27.2017— laurence j sloss MD

Perhaps if Professors of Medicine spent more time at the bedside and caring for patients, rather than attending meetings and grubbing for grant money, things might not have gotten so bad; or at least, their surprise and shock would not have been so acute and severe. What precisely should one expect from a system so clearly designed around protocols, documentation, compliance and greed?

That said...

I don't even have the words to sum up the (disingenuous) "improvements in healthcare" witnessed firsthand in the last 5-10 years. If you're one who enjoys working at the bedside (or used to), there's a good chance you've watched as more and more people clamor to have a role in task of transitioning the bedside nurse into a line worker. So, although I think the Medpage Today author seems like a guy not in a position to be complaining, he is essentially right, in my humble opinion. I just wish he would've made effort to point a more specific finger.

BTW, the comments following the article are much better than the article itself.

[JKL33]

This is the way of healthcare, some slowly but surely, other fast and furious. Now the customer service model rules the roost and expensive price tags are being paid to brands such as Magnet and Studer Group for mindless "suggestions" such as scripting and hourly rounding instead of efforts being focused on retention and safer staffing ratios.

My workplace just rolled out yet another tool to help prevent falls and straight up said that its intention is to take the nurse's critical thinking piece out of the decision. I don't know about you but for the most part I can walk in the to a patient's room and within minutes (most times instantaneously) know whether or not the patient is a fall risk or not...but my educated "opinion" doesn't matter anymore as long as I initial the patients board every hour with a dry erase marker...

This is a fierce effort with all movers-and-shakers corporations (aka: hospitals). Sickening. Anyone who thinks it is a good idea is part of the problem.

[MunoRN, RN]

His basic premise in incorrect, Magnet isn't an award for excellent nursing care, it's an award for hospitals that provide a good work environment and good support for patient care, but it doesn't evaluate the quality of the nurses.