Thread on giving baths got me thinking, and was wondering if nurses still make beds with "hospital" corners anymore. Also is learning the three basic types of beds part of formal nursing education anymore?
I'll leave aside the mandate that pillow slip opening must face away from the door for now. *LOL*
Merely require information, as am often gobsmacked at what passes for a bed these days in hospital, and often hear "I don't have time for that".
Specializes in Spinal Cord injuries, Emergency+EMS.
I learned how to make hospital corners in school, but honestly, as long as the bed looks neat does it matter what angle the pleat is at? What's the evidence-based practice behind the pillow opening facing away from the door?
The evidence base for pillow case ends away from the door was lost somewhere among all the sand and dust in the Crimea ... Where there actually was a need to think aobut making sure the pillow cases didn't get dust between the case and the pillow.
And I always thought the pillow cases faced away from the door so all the departing spirits didn't get trapped in the pillowcases on their way out the windows. :-)
I read some of the original nursing texts last year and I am sure that old Flo didn't mention the way a pillow opening should face. Nor do I believe did texts until at least the 1920's. I didn't read after that so I don't know where the tradition came in . The early texts advised on how to stuff pillows with straw or horsehair and not to leave them lumpy. They also sometimes mentioned that beds and wards should look clean and uniform to improve the patient's sense of wellbeing. Those original texts also advised on colours of walls, how to tend the fire for temperatures in accordance with patient's conditions etc.
As an RN working in a hospital without assistants, and being an ex-Naval officer, I'd actually forgotten there was any way to make a bed without hospital corners. It wouldn't take me any longer to do this than any other method for pulling up a bed.
Now you have to explain to me what you all do with those Chux. I've never heard of using Chux on beds before.
We just have a bottom sheet. Incontinent patients wear pads. We move patients in the bed using a Slippery Sam (slide sheet).
ZippyGBR, BSN, RN
1,038 Posts
The evidence base for pillow case ends away from the door was lost somewhere among all the sand and dust in the Crimea ... Where there actually was a need to think aobut making sure the pillow cases didn't get dust between the case and the pillow.