Do Hospitals Get Prestigious National Awards for Poor Nursing?

Nurses General Nursing

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A member of my family was recently admitted to the hospital to have a procedure to repair a heart problem.

The hospital was brand new, and it had been honored as a Magnet by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Wow, I thought: The nursing must be outstanding.

During the 5-day hospital stay, I witnessed some of the most unusual nursing practices that I had seen in my 40-year career.

Read complete Article: Do Hospitals Get Prestigious National Awards for Poor Nursing? | Medpage Today

Specializes in Critical Care.
Nor does it accurately evaluate that good work environment or good support for patient care.

In my experience it rarely creates or maintains a good work environment or support, which is primarily the fault of ANCC, I have seen it work though but only through the efforts of staff nurses. So long as staff nurses recognize their role as the ones who can control whether or not a facility gets and keeps Magnet status, it can actually be a powerful tool, but again I've only seen that happen once.

Specializes in EMT, ER, Homehealth, OR.

The Joint Commission only checks to see if you have the paperwork saying you give good care not if you are giving good care. This is the pretty much the same with all accrediting agencies.

Specializes in Psych, Corrections, Med-Surg, Ambulatory.
I call horsepucky on this. First of all, since when is magnet status prestigious to the public? Ask 50 members of your community what magnet status means, not one can tell you. And this doctor is extremely misinformed himself on what it is. It's not excellence in nursing care, it's RN retention which should ultimately lead to better patient outcomes. That is all.

Second, who on earth can as a nurse honestly sit there and stand the alarms going off for 45 minutes and two hours? God, I can't deal with longer than 30 seconds on those bed alarms, but 45 minutes? Come on. Two hours for a blood pressure alarm? No way. If I'm at the nurses station, I will look at what room is beeping. If I know it's a false reading, I can maybe take 3 minutes tops. But two hours? Not even the laziest of nurses can go that long.

I think this doctor is relying on exaggerated family reports. He did not witness any of this or he would have been out there quickly flashing his doctor credentials. Because if all these nurses did was follow policies as he states, they would have most certainly known that alarms are to be answered immediately.

His story makes no sense. Either they were policy following robots or the biggest moron nurses in the face of the earth.

Maybe I should call him out on it.

Those are good points. I admit, I was influenced by the specific nature of the complaints, complete with timelines. I found that more credible than "I could tell the nurses were judging me by the looks in their eyes". But you're right. Those are incredibly long times to not respond to an alarm.

I thought maybe the family member had been admitted to Cluster F. General. Because I've already experienced scripting and other stupidities, I thought maybe this hospital epitomized the way so many are going.

I thought these were eyewitness accounts of the kind of care the family member was getting. Now I realize there may be a bit of literary license involved.

This wasn't written for the general public.

He is uninformed about Magnet; his point was that there's something supposedly "status"-worthy about their nursing environment that they broadcast at the same time that so many endeavors do not support nursing. Call it an award for nursing support or culture or retention or whatEVER you want to call it; nurses are struggling in many of these places. Mired down by protocols, policies, cultures of writing up and reporting every little thing, autonomy redacted wherever possible, the "culture of change" which means "get used to the rug being pulled out from under you weekly as we come up with new ways to have you do more with less...."

This whole topic is about the problem of placing value on making something look (or sound) like something good, as opposed to placing value on (and doing) the good thing.

He could've been more to the point (or written something a little more cohesive) but I disagree that this was meant to be some sort of assault on bedside nurses.

Unfortunately it seems to be the trend rather than the exception these days. Magnet designation used to be based upon nursing satisfaction and patient outcomes. Now it seems that it is based upon how detailed a facility's policies are and how "shiny"everything looks. Job satisfaction is dictated by how many nueses they can get to be agreeable without rocking the boat. Hardly what we would have called satisfaction back in the day......

This wasn't written for the general public.

He is uninformed about Magnet; his point was that there's something supposedly "status"-worthy about their nursing environment that they broadcast at the same time that so many endeavors do not support nursing. Call it an award for nursing support or culture or retention or whatEVER you want to call it; nurses are struggling in many of these places. Mired down by protocols, policies, cultures of writing up and reporting every little thing, autonomy redacted wherever possible, the "culture of change" which means "get used to the rug being pulled out from under you weekly as we come up with new ways to have you do more with less...."

This whole topic is about the problem of placing value on making something look (or sound) like something good, as opposed to placing value on (and doing) the good thing.

He could've been more to the point (or written something a little more cohesive) but I disagree that this was meant to be some sort of assault on bedside nurses.

I know the article wasn't written for the general public to see. He makes it sound like this hospital was chosen because it was a magnet hospital which supposedly have excellence in nursing care. Like that is how people choose hospitals. To me, stroke one is that he is a doctor and has no idea what magnet status means. Most nurses don't know what it means. I read on here all the time that it means every nurse has a BSN. That's not it either.

From what I gathered, this family member was imnsk icu. The whole IV thing? The nurses on this unit would have been ok with no access? Strike two. I'm not the best at sticking people, but I always have 2 access points if they are PIVs. I have a hard time believing that the nurses were not even concerned about getting at least one. We have an IV team. I know not every hospital does, but if I was in a bind, and no one on my unit could get one, I would at least call the ER and see if someone could come up. But I don't believe that the nurses lacked the skills to get an IV on an apparent good stick.

Strike 3 is the alarm thing. Those bed alarms are loud.

I 100% believe the family member had a bad experience of some sort. It very much happens. I think the family member relayed to this doctor what she perceived as her bad care. I believe it is overly exaggerated. I do not believe he witnessed the atrocities he is describing. He claims in one article that these nurses did nothing but follow procedures and read from scripts all the while completely ignoring policy and procedure.

I believe the pregnancy test story, and that nobody came to the room when the patient called to go to the bathroom. I believe the bed alarm went off. I do not believe went off for 45 minutes despite repeated calls to turn it off. If you want to write a story to highlight the problems in our healthcare system, make the story accurate and believable rather than half truths and exaggerations.

I know the article wasn't written for the general public to see. He makes it sound like this hospital was chosen because it was a magnet hospital which supposedly have excellence in nursing care. Like that is how people choose hospitals. To me, stroke one is that he is a doctor and has no idea what magnet status means. Most nurses don't know what it means. I read on here all the time that it means every nurse has a BSN. That's not it either.

From what I gathered, this family member was imnsk icu. The whole IV thing? The nurses on this unit would have been ok with no access? Strike two. I'm not the best at sticking people, but I always have 2 access points if they are PIVs. I have a hard time believing that the nurses were not even concerned about getting at least one. We have an IV team. I know not every hospital does, but if I was in a bind, and no one on my unit could get one, I would at least call the ER and see if someone could come up. But I don't believe that the nurses lacked the skills to get an IV on an apparent good stick.

Strike 3 is the alarm thing. Those bed alarms are loud.

I 100% believe the family member had a bad experience of some sort. It very much happens. I think the family member relayed to this doctor what she perceived as her bad care. I believe it is overly exaggerated. I do not believe he witnessed the atrocities he is describing. He claims in one article that these nurses did nothing but follow procedures and read from scripts all the while completely ignoring policy and procedure.

I believe the pregnancy test story, and that nobody came to the room when the patient called to go to the bathroom. I believe the bed alarm went off. I do not believe went off for 45 minutes despite repeated calls to turn it off. If you want to write a story to highlight the problems in our healthcare system, make the story accurate and believable rather than half truths and exaggerations.

Ok, yeah, then I guess write to him and tell him it's all a bunch of BS.

Specializes in Critical care.

Sadly, even in excellent facilities care and patients can slip through the cracks. My family is experiencing this right now at a hospital that is very well regarded in the area and is nationally ranked in almost a dozen specialties.

I live several states away from all my extended family. I have a family member, we'll call him Jack, in the hospital currently. I spoke with Jack's wife the other day and she was scared and frustrated about the care he's been receiving (or more accurately- not receiving). I'm not going to go into the many significant issues, but they have been caused by sloppy/lazy care from both the medical and nursing team. I advised Jack's wife on who to speak with, told her what was wrong, and told her what should be happening. There are some things being investigated now and from a recent report they seem to realize just how much they screwed up (and that they did it with the wrong patient/family). They wanted to know how she knew so much and she finally revealed there is an ICU nurse in the family. I was so ticked off when I spoke with her the other day- I was mad at what my family was experiencing and it makes me wonder how many other patients have had this type of care.

I honestly never thought I'd be "that" family member. I never thought I'd be telling family to make it known there is a critical care nurse who is monitoring everything. I flat out told Jack's wife to tell them there is an ICU nurse in the family who is ready to fly out to be at the hospital if there are no improvements.

Specializes in neuro/trauma ortho/trauma.
I have been out of acute care beside nursing since 2000. Worked in ambulatory care surgical center, one connected to an acute care hospital. The other an independent ambulatory clinic. Didn't see anything like this in ambulatory care? So far all responders have agreed with the original posters point of view.

If bedside nursing is really this bad why aren't nurses shouting it loudly here on Allnurses or elsewhere that bedside nursing is a fake, a sham, a joke. Telling all family and loved ones to please, please, never go to a hospital?

I pray it is just a little over board. If it is 100% accurate I agree with your assessments,....I will never allow myself or a loved one to be admitted to a hospital!

This is what they want us to do. Those that don't get called into offices to discuss their customer service, because their patient complained that the nurse stated they couldn't have their dilaudid, that they set their alarm for, when their blood pressure was 80/30 and they are receiving an IV bolus.

The whole point is that it is such a wonderful place to work, it attracts the brightest and the best.

Which nurses get interviewed by the Magnet people about their workplace? Do they get to go up to random nurses and ask questions? No. The nurses to be interviewed are hand-picked by management. Of course they pick malleable new grads and coach them beforehand.

Nurse practice councils, staffing committees, etc.? All hijacked and run by management. So the workplace looks egalitarian.

The whole thing is a naked emperor.

DING DING DING! WINNER! this is exactly the point of my posting this. Magnet status is just a marketing tool. Hospital administrators don't give a crap about providing great care, only the perception that they do.

Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.

I think the problem comes with the corporatisation of healthcare. Instead of using their critical thinking skills some nurses revert back to "what does policy say" rather than engaging the lump of grey matter between the ears and thinking "What do I need to do with this clinical presentation"

I work for a large cooperation that has many private hospitals for care of the elderly. Recently we had a patient doe who entered into the active dying phase. Patient doe was an insulin dependent diabetic and as you might imagine when patient doe was not eating all their blood sugars were up the ying yang. The charge nurse reverting to policy had the dr review patient doe, and the order was put into the system that patient doe needed QID blood glucose testing and the nurses should administer quick acting insulin as per the sliding scale the doctor had ordered.

SAY WHAT?

Critical thinking should tell any nurse that patient doe is dying and as a result not eating or drinking. Critical thinking should tell any nurse that if a patient doesnt eat of course their blood sugars are up the ying yang. Critical thinking should also get the nurse to ask themselves "what am i hoping to achieve by sticking patient doe four times a day to test their blood glucose levels and administering insulin, when patient is actively dying"

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