Does your ICU provide sitters?

[sjalv]

Hi

The facility at which a former classmate works does not provide sitters (techs) for confused patients in the ICU 'because the nurses only have two patients'. Nevermind that her other patient may be intubated and need constant titration of multiple pressors to keep their blood pressure above a systolic of even 80.

She said she actually has had the family of a patient request that the patient be transferred to the floor out of the ICU, even if they might need ICU-level care, so that a sitter may be assigned. Is this common at other hospitals?

For what it is worth, she is in Kansas. Not sure if that has any bearing. I'm not too sure what the policy is at my hospital because I am a relatively new nurse and have not had a patient who legit needed a sitter.

[mrsjonesRN]

We can get sitters for pt's who are confused, impulsive, fall risks, or we will be assigned 1:1 with them. The hospital would much rather pay for a sitter than to have a fall.

And that makes sense! A minimum wage tech is much cheaper than a fall that sustains a broken hip or massive brain bleed! Our Administration doesn't seem to understand that. They are only thinking short term costs!

[Greenclip]

My hospital has no sitters at all. Yes, we hear the same things about low beds, alarms, e-monitoring, and we are reminded that in ICU we have only two patients anyway. The nurses often say how helpful it would be to have a sitter. There are many situations where a sitter would be far more beneficial than any of the above.

We also keep our psych patients who are on suicide precautions in the ICU until psych has a bed for them...which could be 5-6 days. I think those patients would be much better off on a regular ward with a sitter.

I worked at a couple of hospitals that had sitters. They were usually techs or nursing students, and I thought they did a great job.

[NPOaftermidnight, MSN, RN, NP]

That is so unsafe that they deny you appropriate staffing to sit with a patient that needs one on one. Our hospital will always ensure that we have staffing so that we can have a sitter - usually we use our tech or they send one from another floor, OR they might make us single that patient so the RN has to stay with them the whole time (such an inappropriate use of resources, in my opinion). Sometimes it makes for an easy day, other times it's a total nightmare. Not to mention, sometimes we will not be able to single very critical patients because we have a patient who needs babysitting. So it's definitely not an ideal situation, but I guess at least if a patient needs a sitter they will get it.