Have you read your company's procedures and policies?

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    Joe V
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    Joe V

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Nursing Procedures and Policies Handbook: How much time did you say I had to know these?

When was the last time you read your company's employee Procedures and Policies handbook? In some places, they update their handbooks every year. Do you know where your handbook is at? Please share any stories that you may have regarding "policies at work"...

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When was the last time you read your company's employee Procedures and Policies handbook? In some places, they update their handbooks every year. Do you know where your handbook is at? Please share any stories that you may have regarding "policies at work"...

The last time I read Policy and Procedure 2 months ago. as for the frequency of updating those policies in my workplace every 2 years, all policies will be updated and revised. one of the familiarization program criteria to be given for every new staff introduced to the department knowing Policy & Procedure and how to access it. I had to experience in my first areas exposure of orientation I decided to read policy and procedure then I came to know new terminology called maintenance medication then I was like what maintenance as for my knowledge that time as home medications, then I told my preceptor why the policy says maintenance this word meant for cars as to do oil filter change I was told by preceptor no that word is used correctly then after some time I saw my senior and asked what with maintenance medication in the policy then I was asked by senior do you know what that means? I said yes, it was explained, but that term is not meant for medical to say maintenance. My senior said, then maybe you did not study well in your college. I told senior, no, I studied well as that terminology was not used during my study in college. I told senior If you want to confirm, ask my colleagues. My senior asked my colleagues and realized that we were unaware of that term, considering we joined together as a batch and graduated from the same college. If they know the term, then it confirms that I did not study well in my college, which was not the case, then the senior called someone working in a college of nursing asking why your students are not aware of maintenance medication? so yeah, it was an experience 

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Specializes in Travel, Home Health, Med-Surg.

I have tried to read all those manuals, I really have, but never made it through. Partly because of time constraints and partly because of mind numbing boredom. One place I worked had about 8 manuals each about 3-4 inches think. One day while on orientation nobody showed up to train me so they had me reading those p/p for the entire day, suffice it to say not much actually got in and stuck. Most places just want you to know how to locate a p/p when needed. I am not sure what was more difficult, the paper manual or the intranet manual, toss up!

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Specializes in Critical Care.
2 hours ago, Daisy4RN said:

I have tried to read all those manuals, I really have, but never made it through. Partly because of time constraints and partly because of mind numbing boredom. One place I worked had about 8 manuals each about 3-4 inches think. One day while on orientation nobody showed up to train me so they had me reading those p/p for the entire day, suffice it to say not much actually got in and stuck. Most places just want you to know how to locate a p/p when needed. I am not sure what was more difficult, the paper manual or the intranet manual, toss up!

plus it'll change on a dime. 

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Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.

We have no hard copies, we have PolicyTech online. So, I admit that I have looked up the ones that I need to use at any given time and I ignore the fact that 3000 other ones exist that do not impact my day to day workflow. I probably should care about them, and I'm sure that technically I could get dinged for not following something written there, but I'm willing to take that chance. Additionally, the search function for the site is the absolute worst I have ever encountered so the chances of finding anything you don't have bookmarked as a favorite, or someone else knows the specific name, are very small. 

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

No. I help write them, so I know them like the back of my hand.

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No, I probably haven't ever laid eyes upon the bulk of them but rather seek them out PRN according to situations I've encountered.

Interesting (okay maybe not).....policies led to one of my earliest inklings that my understanding of nursing and my employer's understanding of nursing were not the same. It occurred to me when the policies became digitalized. For the first years of my career the policies were always kept in easily accessible areas and even though the binders were huge, if you managed to get it down off the shelf you would find what you needed.

Then they were digitalized, they seemed to multiply exponentially and the indexing sucked. To this day it is quite difficult to find relevant policies. Which, sorry but that's just BS.

But then we still had to check a box somewhere every so often assuming responsibility for the contents of all the policies which supervisors, managers, staff, educators...nobody could find? Thanks.

One of my first ? moments when things started to go really downhill.

 

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

I've never read the whole thing. Seems like there's a policy/procedure for just about every conceivable scenario but like JKL33 said nobody can easily just pull up the relevant document.  The one time I needed to find a policy I finally gave up and just asked somebody where to find the darn thing. The company intranet is so huge just finding what little corner the policies and procedures are buried in is a challenge itself. Once you finally figure that out It doesn't help that the documents are never titled like you would expect them to be and there are just SO MANY good luck tracking down the one  you are looking for without knowing the exact document title.  The search engine is not exactly user friendly.

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).
On 7/27/2021 at 11:26 AM, Joe V said:

 Please share any stories that you may have regarding "policies at work"...

I received quite a bit of attention for my knowledge and subsequent actions:

 

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Our unit has the psych holds (lucky us), so when my coworker told me about when one applied some modern expression artwork to walls and how she was frustrated I reminded her of one of the points of "patient mission things" that we had (This would be are 3rd one since I've been working there). I forget what they are called. A new one comes up and everyone has to sign it saying they understand it.

Anyway going off track.

Two of the points are "you must relate to the patient" and "you must empathize with the patient".

I just didn't she why she couldn't relate to throwing ?? ? all over the  walls and emphasize with that feeling to do so ??!?!

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I don't think she did the last one which is "Thank them".

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We did have a CN who was like Sheldon. Many were annoyed, by him but I thought he was cool.

RN "Hey are we allowed to do so and so?"

CN "Well let's get the manual and see"

Happily and very EAGERLY pulls out the manual

CN "According to section blah blah, paragraph blah blah, policy blah blah you can't"

And if you caught you doing something like have a candy bar at computer he would reference the policy.

Yeah he annoyed a lot of people, especially the RNs. I didn't mind.

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