Patient Surveys..vent.

[Caffeine_IV]

I am having a moment so please excuse me.

I can't stand these stupid surveys but I know they are here to stay. Patients give us (the nurses) poor ratings based on things like:

Took too long to get ice

The lab had trouble drawing my blood

They woke me up too much

Nobody offered me a bath

Those are actual comments.

I value my patients and recognize that their perception is their reality but I think it has gone overboard.

I have yet to see any complaints like:

My oxygen fell off and no one helped me put it back on when I called

I complained of chest pain and was ignored for 30 minutes

Accidently pulled out IV and was left bleeding for 10 minutes

Why? Probably because we respond pretty quickly to things that are a higher priority.

[llg, PhD, RN]

A lot has to do with how the survey results are used. Management should be smart enough to identify the important stuff and not hassle you about the rest. Of course, I am not saying they ARE smart enough to do that ... just that they SHOULD be smart enough.

[Hygiene Queen]

Whoa ho ho...

Imagine what we get in psych.

lol

Talk about pts who do not want to be there.

Like we are really going to get rave reviews!

I like the comments about separating the "crazy" pts from everybody else.

"The rooms are too cold."

"The rooms are too hot."

"They wouldn't let me have my iPod."

"They took my pantyhose away."

"I had to make my own bed."

"Too many groups."

"Not enough groups."

"I felt like I was in prison."

Blah blah blah.

Oh, and my favorite:

"There are no call-lights."

No! There are not any call-lights... and we like it that way... and don't you dare go and ruin it for us!!!

[Dazglue, ADN, BSN, MSN, RN]

I hate those surveys, too. Our nurse manager insists on having meetings to go over them as a group (this after 12.5 hour days), and they really only ever cover the complaints. It's so demoralizing.

Also, based on these stupid surveys, they are actually giving us a SCRIPT about how to speak to patients (thanks to one or two surly nurses), and they intend to shadow us on rounds to see how well we do. It's so insulting. I wish management would just grow some testicles and speak directly to the one or two nurses with attitude issues.

Do we work on the same unit?? I work 3rd shift and our staff meetings are after we get off from 7:30am-8:45am. The have a patient council meeting every week and we have to go over all the complaints from the patients. I wish we could let them know all of our complaints. YES we have to check on you throughout the night to make sure you're still breathing b/c if we didn't your "sweet" family would sue us. YES, there's a reason why you can't stand up alone. Oh, wait you found that out after you hit the floor a 2nd time since day of admission and now Ihave to call your family again. AND do a doctor, physical therapy, AND pharmacy consult b/c you're so smart. And I LOVE the "smart" family members. You know the ones who know EVERYTHING but the more they talk, the more stupid they sound such as....Mom's blood sugar is 58, why aren't you giving her insulin to raise it?!?!?! I wanna speak to your supervisor!" Ok. Rant over! Lol. I can go on and on and on...

[nhnurse]

We get a kick out of these too on my med surg unit. We had a patient write it was his "worst stay yet!". As if it's a hotel. Management loves the ones that say it's "like a 4 star hotel". What exactly are we going for here?!? I thought the idea (especially for ortho post-ops) was to work hard and move on either to home or rehab.

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

If we run out of TP I just grab a stack of those things. I honestly do not give one flying **** what people write. IF it is a serious issue, they typically already address it at the hospital with the manager/RN/somebody.

[DixieRedHead, ASN, RN]

"My mother was in the ER And all the nurses were just sitting at the desk playing on the internet." (IV running, pain meds given, monitor on, toileted upon request, seen by the doc, what do you want me to do.)

Hello, every time you see a nurse in front of a computer they are not on the internet. They may be ordering tests, or heaven forbid charting.

Take your survey and shove it.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

patient surveys might actually be helpful if they addressing issues we could actually do something about. direct the complaints about the ice not being cold enough to the circular file, the complaint about the food to the food service and the complaints about the tv to that department. but it seems that nursing gets blamed for everything, whether it is under our control or not. and even the questions that do address nursing issues end up addressing things we can't change. if you're npo and you ask for water, you're not going to get it. period. management should have enough sense to deal with those complaints in whatever happy/happy way they see fit without involving the actual nursing staff. if the nurse has charted that the patient was educated about their npo status and offered oral swabs instead, that should be enough.

there are rarely -- that i've seen -- any meaningful complaints about the nursing staff. instead, we get hasseled about the silly complaints. "three lovely young nurses and one fat, old one tied me down and forced me to have sex all night long." (agitated, combative and confused young man on a propofol drip who kept exposing his genitals and trying to pull out his lines and tubes. now tell me how we should have dealt with that one.)

"my nurse was a fat, white (bad word meaning female dog) who should suck my big black (bad word meaning male fowl) and die." (yeah, that's one we can really be constructive about.)

"the nurse woke me up every hour (in the icu) and there was a big fuss just because my roommate's heart stopped for awhile."

you cannot fix stupid.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Ruby, that was the best entertainment I've had in a long time!

[Guttercat, ASN, RN]

Wow. Just wow.

Health care is a rapidly changing beast.

Fasten your seatbelts ladies and gents.

[wooh, BSN, RN]

We used to have the complaints put on the wall and we (the staff) were supposed to write on there our solutions. That stopped not long after the complaint, "My food was stolen from the family refrigerator." I don't think they liked the suggestion, "24 hour armed security guard for the family refrigerator."

My favorites are on page one of the complaint list, "Came in too much at night," and, "Didn't smile enough," followed on page 2 with, "Didn't come in enough at night," and, "Smiling all the time, didn't they know I was sick?"

[Altra, BSN, RN]

My favorites are on page one of the complaint list, "Came in too much at night," and, "Didn't smile enough," followed on page 2 with, "Didn't come in enough at night," and, "Smiling all the time, didn't they know I was sick?"

Love this!

[pitapita]

I figure if all a patient has to complain about is the quality of the food from our kitchen or the fact that the water from our bubbler isn't ice cold, we're doing a pretty damn good job! :yelclap:

- Pita