I'm wondering if any other hospitals have such a policy in place. We very recently started including in our patient admit information binder a paper which explains to the family and patients how to initiate a MET team response, including which number to call if they feel the nursing staff is not taking appropiate action. It does indicate to notify the primary nurse first if certain things are wrong, like increased SOB or mental status changes. That's great, no problem there. It then goes on to say to ask for the charge nurse if they feel the primary nurse isn't getting the job done (although it's phrased differently, that's what it boils down to). Again, perfectly within reason when a loved one's life is involved.
But then it goes on to say that if things still aren't being done to their satisfaction, to call the number for the MET team. Which means that a page goes out over beepers for multiple staff members hospital wide, pulling them away from their duties, automatically...it's a fully automated system and no human is involved in the paging process asided from the one dialing the phone. Um, hello? Multiple nurses and quite possible support staff such as RT have already addressed the issue, explained our interventions (or lack thereof) and supporting rationale, and have likely already consulted with the attending and/or any applicable specialists. I'm just wondering what management was thinking when they gave family members access to that number...seems like at the least there would be a different number to differentiate what were family initiated and what was nurse initiated.
Any thoughts or am I way off base here? I can think of a few family members of frequent flyers who would really be abusing this situation if we were actually pointing it out to them, instead of hiding it amongst more boring paperwork in the middle of the binder. You all know the kind I'm talking about...
