I have a question for all of you wonderful, experienced nurses out there!
I have seen the following scenario several times and want to know how you handle the situation...
You have a confused patient that keeps jumping out of bed every 5 minutes. Of course, they are a fall risk, possibly even on a heparin drip, have a bed alarm on (of course), but move pretty quick despite the fact that they sway if they stand still.
You find them in the bathroom, with their IV pulled out, with no socks on their feet, bed alarm at full tilt and nearly catch them as they are falling (or thanking your lucky stars they didn't fall).
And the whole time, there is a family member in the room with them! Wide awake, watching TV. And when you enter the room, they say, well, she pulled her IV out again. The RN I'm working with takes care of the patient, gets them back to bed safely, resets the bed alarm, fixes the IV, or places a new one, and goes on to check the next patient, not saying anything to the family member in the room.
I, personally, think this warrants a sit down with the family member to tell them that we are all on the same team, and that is to make sure the patient doesn't fall and hit their head. At the very least, the family needs to remind PatientX to stay in bed and then hit the call light to call for nursing assistance and we will be there in no time.
So, do you have the conversation with family or not? What's your policy/reasoning? TIA