Anyone ever have a family member angry about an ER transfer?
The other day, a patient experienced sudden onset of abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. This was while we were doing a telehealth visit with a provider. The provider, seeing how much in distress the patient was, recommended an immediate ER transfer. Family was notified. They wondered if they could see her first, but they were 3 hours away and the situation appeared more urgent than that. Within a relatively short period of time, she was transferred to the ER. She later on returned after testing which reported no significant findings.
As a consequence of the ER due to medications given, a surgical procedure was postponed. Family was angry about this as the procedure was intended to alleviate a condition causing the resident chronic pain. They demanded to know what necessitated the ER transfer, despite being informed the previous day, and were angry that a provider had seen the patient without them being notified in advance. I apologized for their frustration, but also explained that the provider had wanted to ensure that the patient was medically stable before her procedure. At our facility, we also don't always notify family of every provider visit as many of them are spontaneous and/or do not result in any care plan changes.
Anyway, I understand their frustration but at the time felt it was in the patients' best interest. Thoughts?
LMAO just disregard and refer to patient relations. Sorry someone caring about their family members well being delayed an elective procedure. FOR SHAME.
I have a feeling that the social worker who deals with these concerns/complaints will find a way to side with the patient/family. They almost always do. I'm not going to worry about it too much. I'm sure the family would have plenty to say if there had been something wrong and I hadn't tried to ensure medical stability as well.
what was apparently an unnecessary ER visit/postponement
The resident was having concerning symptoms and the ER visit was necessary to r/o something serious. Just because an ER visit doesn't result in hospitalization does not mean it was unnecessary.
The resident was having concerning symptoms and the ER visit was necessary to r/o something serious. Just because an ER visit doesn't result in hospitalization does not mean it was unnecessary.
Pt WAS in distress at that orig time. Then got better. Doesn't mean that something didn't exist or Halleluah, was cured miraculously!
Reminds me like when your car misbehaves and you take it to the shop. Only for the mechanic to think you're knutz because the car is fine. Until you take it out and the car just reacts again 20 mins since you left the shop! YES!?!?
SB - if this post if for real, you did fine. Stop overthinking about crazy families, postponements and social workers. LET THIS ONE GO!!
I have a feeling this is the type of family that no matter what explanation we gave or action we took, they were going to find something they felt should have been done differently.
There is your answer,and this is why hospital administration continues to fail nurses at every turn refusing to accept that sometimes it is NOT tthe nurses' fault.That families like those really do exist, not mythology.
Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
On 7/31/2021 at 1:06 PM, SilverBells said:
I figure so. Better for them to get over what was apparently an unnecessary ER visit/postponement of a routine surgery than a death.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that further evaluation wasn’t necessary. It was. Just because nothing was wrong doesn’t mean you didn’t need to find out that nothing was wrong.
What was the discharge diagnosis from the ED? If there was absolutely nothing additionally wrong and the distress was part of the chronic pain issue, it doesn’t really add up that this should postpone her surgery. Can you advocate for that?
I don’t let family run the show, but I do consider them to be important advocates. It sounds like they just want what’s best for their mom.
.thumb.jpg.e7b5bd336d518053002d5b4dbeef882b.jpg){kind=small}
SilverBells, BSN
1,108 Posts
I have a feeling that the social worker who deals with these concerns/complaints will find a way to side with the patient/family. They almost always do. I'm not going to worry about it too much. I'm sure the family would have plenty to say if there had been something wrong and I hadn't tried to ensure medical stability as well.
This is great ?