Because thats really gonna help

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Neuro, ICU, travel RN, Psych.

So my hospital has had a major increase in falls in the past couple months. 3 in one week on the telemetry floor. The solution? Every 2 hour toileting. Which is supposed to be done anyway. The CHANGE from previous, that is supposed to take care of the problem. MORE CHARTING!!! They have now added having to initital every 2 hours on our flow sheet that we toileted the patient every 2 hours, in addition to the hourly rounding sign off we have to do.

I find it humorous, I really do. The fact that management apparently has their heads so far up their butts that they thing ADDING more paperwork that will take away from the time we have to spend caring for our patients, is somehow going to improve patient care. INSTEAD of actually looking at what may have contributed to the falls. Like cutting our staffing AGAIN. Lets see.. less staff= less time for each patient. Less time= increased falls and lower "client" satisfaction. But hey... whatever looks good on paper, right:rolleyes:

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Specializes in Critical care.

If Q2hrs has gotten you steamed, wait until the hourly rounding thing strikes admin's fancy. It'll come around soon enough.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Neuro, ICU, travel RN, Psych.
If Q2hrs has gotten you steamed, wait until the hourly rounding thing strikes admin's fancy. It'll come around soon enough.

We already do the hourly rounding, and have to sign it off every hour. Thats my point. Kind of redundant. I work ICU.. except the 9 million times a month when we float because our cencus is low. So we toilet our people anyways. I think they should be toileted, no doubt about that. It's not the rounding that I find amusing, it's the fact that they just keep adding more charting, and think thats going to solve the problem.

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Specializes in ER, cardiac, addictions.

For a while, we had sign-off sheets in the ER. The CNA was supposed to sign off on even hours and the nurse on odd hours.

It seemed to me to be so phony to go into the patient's room, ask, "By the way, is your pain better?" and check it off on the sheet. Then, "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" (Check.) "Do you understand what tests we're still waiting for?" (Check.) And, of course, that question so dear to the hearts of upper management: "Is there anything else I can do for you? I have the time." (Check.) The insinuation was that we wouldn't ask those questions unless we were forced to, which was of course nonsense.

We used to ignore the silly sheet, take care of the patients as we usually did (night shift's patient satisfaction scores were always close to 99%, anyway!) and then fill in all the initials toward the end of the shift. I guess management came to realize how pointless they were, because the whole project was abandoned after several months.

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Specializes in med/surg, wound/ostomy.

We are the same way. Scripted things to say to the patient, such as 'have the time." Sounds like all hopsitals are usint the same script - the Studor group or whoever came up with this is surely making a mint off of it. What about something innovative and from the heart? Now that is a novel idea.

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Amazing how everything always looks better on paper than what it really is.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Nsg QA.

I contend that the administration doesn't go any where near the patient floors. I would bet they don't know any of the staff nurses by name. they probably do know the managers, and maybe some of the assistants, but that's about it. I would love to see someone in administration shadow a staff nurse - not a manager or assistant manager. Many of the hospitals seem to be vying for the "Gee, We are Great" award, so to solve our problems, we will have staff do something proactive. It doesn't matter if it really works.

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Specializes in CVICU.

We have the hourly rounding too. Unfortunately, ours isn't going away anytime soon because it affects the hospital's overall insurance premiums, so we're stuck with it. I'm ICU too, and we're in the rooms way more than once every hour. It's stupid to have yet another paper to fill out. We usually just initial the whole thing at once whenever we have time.

Scripting is the most idiotic thing I've ever witnessed. I don't do it. They actually want us to say exactly the phrases they've created for us. To me, it sounds phony and contrived. And when someone uses scripting on me, like a waiter or a front desk clerk at a hotel, I feel like they don't care about me as an individual at all. It's so obvious that they're just repeating the same things over and over that they couldn't possibly give a rat's ass about me as an individual, right?

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Specializes in ER, cardiac, addictions.
We have the hourly rounding too. Unfortunately, ours isn't going away anytime soon because it affects the hospital's overall insurance premiums, so we're stuck with it. I'm ICU too, and we're in the rooms way more than once every hour. It's stupid to have yet another paper to fill out. We usually just initial the whole thing at once whenever we have time.

Scripting is the most idiotic thing I've ever witnessed. I don't do it. They actually want us to say exactly the phrases they've created for us. To me, it sounds phony and contrived. And when someone uses scripting on me, like a waiter or a front desk clerk at a hotel, I feel like they don't care about me as an individual at all. It's so obvious that they're just repeating the same things over and over that they couldn't possibly give a rat's ass about me as an individual, right?

I agree. I don't use it, either. Fortunately, our director doesn't care if we use the scripting or not, just so long as we pay attention to the idea behind it. And, let's face it, for most of us it's second nature to keep the patient informed, and to let him/her know we're prepared to meet whatever needs s/he has.

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Not a nurse yet; in nursing school.

I have been in banking since I was 19 (I'm 32), and we have had countless of useless checklists added to our daily grind. I'm pretty sure there is a spot to check off that says we have completed the checklist. It's such a waste of time. I can see new employees needing to use it (to make sure they have accomplished all of their tasks), but those of us who have been here forever don't really need it. Majority of the ppl just initial everything at the end of the day w/out even paying attention to it. What a waste!

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Specializes in OR, CVOR, Clinical Education, Informatic.

It's all about the hospital's cya. It doesn't really matter if it effects or improves care. It simply provides a paper trail for administration to show that they took steps to address an issue. Period. Then it becomes the nurse's liability, because obviously the hospital was all about implementing stricter safety measures as evidenced by Nurse Nancy's signature on the required documentation.

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Specializes in ER, ICU, Education.

Too bad nurses aren't offered the opportunity to visit the toilet every 2 hours. Most of us only get the chance to go once every 12 hours, if that. I'm gonna make a form for management. They will have to initial it, stating that they have checked that every nurse in the hospital has had the chance to pee every 2 hours, and to take a real uninterrupted break and lunch :) Any failures to complete the form will lead to a salary freeze.

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