Does your hospital require a certain color uniform?

[ctspargo]

Are you required to wear certain color scrubs? styles? What color? Does your facility offer a uniform allowance? Do they provide scrubs? Do they offer payroll deduction?

We are currently voting on what color scrubs we want to wear as nurses and whether different disciplines should wear different colors. We are trying to look more professional and help our patients be able to identify who is walking in their room, nurse? housekeeper? lab? aide?

Any of your thoughts and how uniforms are working in your hospital will be greatly appreciated.

[moz]

In March our new uniform policy went into effect. Nurses wear white, navy, ceil or royal; aides wear dark brown. Our shoes and socks have to be all white with no color on them, and lab jackets must be white or the color of our scrubs. The uniforms can't have any print or trim of a different color. Hair cannot touch shoulders or be in the face. If it's pulled back the clips must match your hair or uniform. We have no uniform allowance. I suppose it does look more professional..but nothing has changed in other depts like lab- whom I've seen wear T shirts with logos on them, and pretty much anything.

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

Moved to the general nursing forum

[joyflnoyz, LPN]

My facility just mandated colors for nurses and aides. Supposedly, it came from "corporate HQ, so that residents and visitors know who works here"

'Scuse me?? I have NEVER had anyone ask "Do you work here?" I've been at my curent employement 5 years. Even if someone can't READ the nametags, they can SEE them.

I've already had complaints about howmuch more dull, drab and depessing things are. The residents (and some visitors!) have commented on the individual colors, patterns etc we used to wear.

The only people mandatd colors benefits are those who work in the facility. The public doesn't care

[KBRN413]

ok, if you walk into a room with scrubs on....most people will know you work there! :chuckle if you have a name tag, most people can read it. and most people introduced themselves when they walk into a patients room. so, wearing the same uniforms really doesn't make sense. at my institution, we can wear anything we want.

i feel bad that some of you have to wear white shoes!! i havent worn white shoes since nursing school! i hate them!

[nursecass]

The hospital that I am working at currently requires certain colors for certain workers. Nurses wear white tops and royal blue bottoms; techs wear all royal blue; RT wears all black; PT wears all purple; OT wears all green; Speech wears red top, black bottoms; skin care team wears all pink; housekeeping wears maroon. But you can wear whatever color socks and shoes you want! :nuke:

The explanation given to me was that it improves pt satisfaction ratings because the pt knows who is walking into the room (as opposed to asking the housekeeper for pain meds because they are wearing a printed scrub top just like the nursing staff), but I'm not sure I believe that. Especially since the colors are not explained to pt's-so they don't know that the all blue person is the tech and the one in white is the nurse.

The two good things I can say for it though are: 1.) makes it really easy getting dressed-I just grab clothes without worrying about matching :yeah:and 2.) it makes it a little easier to identify ancillary staff when they are on the floor. (So I know my pt has a speech eval this day, I see the red/black and can go directly to them and make sure they will be seeing my pt that day, or you know easily who is looking at your charts without having to interrupt them.) But again, it takes a little time to get to know all the colors.

Edited to add: our hospital does not pay for any of our scrubs, does not provide any and does not provide any allowance for scrubs. So those of us who had no white and blue scrubs from previous jobs had to go out and start all new-kind of a pricey way to start a new job IMO.

[mom2michael, MSN, RN, NP]

I work OB and we have hospital provided scrubs that has our logo embroidered on the tops and bottoms. The tops are actually a nice style cut and they don't make us look like we are wearing potato sacks. These are provided by our department to be worn only while at work. We have an entire process that goes along with getting a set out. We are required to wear these, nothing else is to be worn at work.

We can wear an appropriate solid color jacket if we get cold.

For our mommies and babies this is a security issue. We stand out and parents notice if someone comes in their room not dressed like us. We also are very quick to notice on the floor if someone is up there that is not dressed like us.

Our parents really like it and comment frequently about how nice we look and they just love our scrubs.

Other than us, the only other department in the facility that color coordinates is housekeeping. They wear burgundy and the facility provides their scrubs for them as well.

I wish the facility would go system wide with some color coding and actually enforce the policy. I'm getting tired of skin top T-shirts or T-shirts with not so appropriate graphic designs on them.

[BrokenRNheart]

As they continue to take away any possible desirable reason to go into nursing.

As the changes keep coming and to top it off......too many patients.

So....what will happen to all those nice scrubs that have been designed, I wonder.

[Keepstanding, ASN, RN]

unless you are in peds, i must admit that i would not want to be a critical patient in icu, feeling like crap and have a nurse who is wearing sponge bob on her shirt.:zzzzz only my worth !

[APBT mom, LPN, RN]

Nurses wear royal blue or white. CNA/PCT's wear beige and black. Both are allowed to wear those colors however they want. RT wears gray, transporters wear maroon, dietary wears maroon tops and black bottoms, and housekeeping wears dark blue. We can wear whatever shoes we want although we aren't suppose to wear anything with holes in it (a lot of people do). We don't get an allowance but there is a uniform store across the street that offers 20% off for employees of the hospital. On Fridays we are allowed to wear a hospital polo shirt or red and pink scrubs (I don't know why) that we can mix or match with the scrubs we're allowed to wear other days. The only difference with the nursing staff is anyone that works in L&D has a different color name tag.

The only perk is not having to worry about matching. I used to work at a MD's office and went scrub shopping right before I got into my nursing program so I had about $400 of scrubs that were only worn once or not at all with the hopes that I would wear them once I got out of school. The only hospital in my area that lets the staff wear what they want is the one that rarely hires LPN's so I gave them to my husbands mother because she can wear them at her job (day care).

[nebrgirl]

Besides being a CNA I work sometimes as a security guard at the hospital....One day I'm wearing the security shirt sitting in front of the security camera tv screen, and this lady walks into ER and demands to know if I'm the Dr. LOL I don't think patients remember what color scrubs mean which positon held...especially since it varies from facility to facility.

Nebr.girl

[joyflnoyz, LPN]

I usually go for a tshirt and pants coordianted (such as tan/brown)or same solid colors with a print SHORT sleeved scrub top as a jacket..florals, butterflies, hearts, appropriate holiday print

I don't like cartoon characters - Can you just imagine a dementia pt seeing a Taz coming straight at 'em? The res isn't gonna see you, she's gonna see that on your shirt

Solids are calmer for my residents, don't wear much red as that is an "angry' color and i need 'em as calm as they can possibly be! Lots of blues, browns, greens, black pants