Some hospitals, in order to compete, are offering patients (or making standard) internet access, flat screen TVs, massages, availability of "high class" menus, etc.
Proponents say this helps hospitals stay competitive and the patients to feel "cared for". Opponents say the money could be better spent (i.e.-patient care).
As nursing professionals, how do you feel about these services being offered and/or expected?
As an RN, I'm afraid I'll be spending valuable time fixing someone's computer connection (or having to call someone to do it) rather than spending my time providing patient care.
Which is why two hours each day -- 1 to 2 p.m. and 1 to 2 a.m. -- are designated as "quiet times," when nurses speak in hushed tones, the lights are dimmed and doctors are discouraged from doing rounds.
What happened to everyone being more quiet at night period, not just during two hours? Two hours during the day does not promote sleep for a sick patient.
I worked in one of those hospitals in the article. While they were spending a fortune making the lobby look elegant they cut staff. Doesn't make sense, does it?
I do agree it's nice to have some amentities in a hospital I think we're going too far.
They just remodeled a couple of floors at my hospital and put in all kinds of beautiful things including a waterfall in the floor lobby. But not a penny more on staff or equiptment for the nurses.
That's always a bitter pill to swallow when you see remodeling. Our facility just remodeled the lobby and it looks good. Not luxerous but good. They also built a state-of-the-art OR with nice equipment, new rooms, mainly to suck up to surgeons who threated to take their business elsewhere.
At the moment at the last "town hall" meeting for lay staff (non-administrative) we were told we're 4 million in the hole, and we have to work harder with less staff, etc. etc. and we need to be supportive and loyal to the organization. "and if you can't, then we really don't want you as part of our team". In other words "find another job if you don't like the new staffing pattern".
...Flat-screen televisions and CD players are standard in many rooms at Montgomery General in Olney. Janitors at Washington Adventist in Takoma Park do more than clean patients' rooms; they're instructed to ask: "Is the temperature comfortable? Can I open the blinds? Get you a pillow?"
As long as they have folks taking care of the flat-sreeen, fluffing the pillows and not wasting the nurses time .....
I'm all for having amenities available to patients who want them and can afford to pay for them. If I were a patient, I would be willing to pay for a few amenities myself! Also, as both of my parents have spent time in the hospital as they were dying in the last few years, I was grateful that they had a few amenities to help make their last few days/months more pleasant.
The key is ... that the people who provide and maintain the amenities don't have to be professional nurses. Let the nurses focus on providing good nursing care to ALL patients and hire additional non-nurse types to fluff pillows, maintain computers, etc. for those patients who purchase the amenities.
The amenities themselves are not the problem. It is the expectation that professional nurses provide and maintain them. Let's define the problem correctly so that we can best address the issue -- allowing the nurses to focus on health care while also providing for our patients' needs by providing them with a more pleasant stay in the hospital.
I hope that the patient amenities are only a small part of an overall effort to improve the hospital experience for patients. Let me tell you about a few recent experiences my husband has had.
It has been our custom, when he has needed to be admitted, to go to a local teaching hospital. Sadly, the nurses have been so overworked, that I actually feared for his safety. On his last admission there, he had a horrible backache from being left on the ER stretcher for 2 days after he was transferred to the floor. I finally roamed the halls until I was able to locate an actual bed, & pushed it back to his room myself. I did all of the linen changes, water refills (including the initial fill, 14 hours into the hospitalization)
& personal hygiene. Not a single tray that was delivered was a diabetic diet (his sugars were running 350 & higher) & when this was brought to the attention of the nurse, he was told to go ahead & eat it anyway, it's all we have. He was never offered a choice & the meals were cold and awful. Meds were frequently given late, but we could see that the nurses really were trying their best, they just had way too many patients to care for. They looked exhausted & had no time for any amenities at all. We never complained to them or anyone else, because we could see that they were already maxed out. Still, we both felt that even though they tried their best to do as much as they could, that he received substandard care and was just another CHF/pneumonia with no identity at all.
The last time he required admission, our doctor persuaded us to try a hospital 45 minutes away. Let me tell you--it was more than well worth the inconvenience of the drive!! Yes this hospital had amenities--there was a trifold leatherbound menu with room service. Whenever he felt like eating he called the room service number and ordered from the menu, Within 15 minutes (the menu said within 45 minutes) a piping hot meal was delivered by a teenager in a dark green silk cutaway waiter's jacket with real silverware and a linen napkin! Needless to say, THAT food disappeared like magic and was exactly the kind of food a diabetic should have. Newspapers were delivered to the rooms, TV sets were attached to an adjustable arm that could be positioned to anyplace that was convenient for the patient. A terrific notebook was in the bedside table that outlined all of the services offered and answered any questions about the hospital that we could possibly have. All of the staff was very friendly and helpful and all of them had a little extra time to spend with each patient. Even the housekeeper was able to visit and share some recipes. I spoke with all of the nurses who cared for him & everyone of them loved their jobs & loved working for that particular hospital.. They all felt that they had more time to do some of the things that we were taught to do in nusing school but don't always have time to do. They loved that their employer's emphasis was on patient satisfaction, because they were all afforded just a little more time to try to make the experience as pleasnt as possible.
So, hopefully, if your institution is trying to provide amenities as part of an overall patient satisfaction package, they will realize that the most important "amenity" of all is an unharried nurse who has a manageable patient load and can look afterf her patients the way she WANTS to!.
I guess managements are the same all over: This is too suggestive of what I read in the paper lately, regarding the fancy upgrades Delta airlines is going to put on their aircraft, to attract more passengers. But they are also working very hard to pull the pensions on their pilots and other employees. I guess if they get away with not funding pensions plans they'll be able to "find" the money for these upgrades. Heaven knows there won't be any increased fares to fund it! Hospitals are doing the same.
I can't even program my electronic stuff at home, so when someone asks me how to do it at work, I politely say I don't know. True: I don't. But I'm also not going to find out how. Not nursing care.
In general, I don't think offering these sorts of amenities is, in and of itself, a bad thing - there's a nearby hospital where its entire structure is focused on this sort of patient/guest care - grand piano played in the lobby, cushy, beautiful furniture, etc. And they have the staff to make all the pieces come together, and from what I hear the nursing staff is very happy there.
But I can't tell you how angry I was when, at my large, urban teaching hospital, where we're chronically understaffed and underequipped - for example, we have one borrowed (from another floor) barely functioning o2sat machine for a floor with 2/3 VRE/MRSA+ patients - the hospital decided to spend god knows how much money on replacing every TV in the hospital with flat screens. :angryfire I'm all for amenities, but really!
I only wish the pts on our floor were as concerned with how poorly we were monitoring their resp. status and preventing nosocomial infections as they are with having a nice TV and an extensive channel lineup. It's as basically everyone else has said - not a bad idea in and of itself, but not at the expense of the REAL patient care.
twinmommy+2, ADN, BSN, MSN
1,289 Posts
What happened to everyone being more quiet at night period, not just during two hours? Two hours during the day does not promote sleep for a sick patient.