How does your facility flag blind patients?

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry, PACU, Med-Surg.

There is the obvious, reminding staff during report. But what about housekeeping staff or dietary when they do their rounds? Do you have a policy for flagging the charts? Doors? I appreciate any input.

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.

Flagging charts really does not help since dietary and housekeeping does not have access to charts.

As for putting a sign on the door...at one of the facilities where I worked--the used to put the organism on isolations signs--i.e. they would put "MRSA" on the sign rather that just "contact isolation." The IC nurse said that they could no longer put the organism on the sign (that was hung on the door) because this was a HIPAA violation. If this is true, I'm guessing putting a sign that says "blind" on the hallway side of the door would be a HIPAA violation. I have seen signs above the bed so that staff does not rearrange the items in the room.

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry, PACU, Med-Surg.

At our facility we use laminated signs depicting pictures of "falling leaves" to designate Fall Risk patients. I am concerned that we are going to end up with a road map of silly pictures to designate everything management thinks we need to flag, so I'm just looking for some kind of workable, reasonable alternative.

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We have big yellow 'sight impared' signs that go on the wall behind the patients bed (we have open wards so its instantly visable)

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
At our facility we use laminated signs depicting pictures of "falling leaves" to designate Fall Risk patients. I am concerned that we are going to end up with a road map of silly pictures to designate everything management thinks we need to flag, so I'm just looking for some kind of workable, reasonable alternative.

Maybe sign with a baseball umpire on it for a blind pt? :cool:

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Specializes in retired LTC.
At our facility we use laminated signs depicting pictures of "falling leaves" to designate Fall Risk patients. I am concerned that we are going to end up with a road map of silly pictures to designate everything management thinks we need to flag, so I'm just looking for some kind of workable, reasonable alternative.
We had 'falling stars' and cactuses (cacti?) for fluid restrictions on doorframes. We weren't allowed in many of my last LTC places to have any wall signs - something about pt dignity (and probably HIPAA). Yeah - like how much dignity was there when food trays were left untouched on bedside tables ....

I think that's another reason why they came out with the pink bracelets for "NO venipuncture/BPs" for dialysis or mastectectomy pts. They stuck a yellow "falls risk" bracelet on me when I went for outpt testing as I use a cane now pre-knee surgery. We all know what the colors mean, so where's the PRIVACY?!?!?

Funny, but nobody knows what my blue " anti-domestic violence" bracelet designates!!!

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We had 'falling stars' and cactuses (cacti?) for fluid restrictions on doorframes. We weren't allowed in many of my last LTC places to have any wall signs - something about pt dignity (and probably HIPAA). Yeah - like how much dignity was there when food trays were left untouched on bedside tables ....

I think that's another reason why they came out with the pink bracelets for "NO venipuncture/BPs" for dialysis or mastectectomy pts. They stuck a yellow "falls risk" bracelet on me when I went for outpt testing as I use a cane now pre-knee surgery. We all know what the colors mean, so where's the PRIVACY?!?!?

Funny, but nobody knows what my blue " anti-domestic violence" bracelet designates!!!

Bracelets make way more sense though. No lie, I had a "falls risk" sign hung around my neck when a transport person brought me for an MRI, that on top of the piece of paper they had to get signed when they dropped me off and picked me up, was totally humiliating! (Yes, I was a fall risk I suppose since I'd just had a crainiotomy but the fact that I was 24 years old and previously completely healthy also made the fall risk and being a patient in general more uncomfortable).

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

We don't flag blind patients. Why would housekeeping or dietary need to know that? (we do tray set up ourselves)

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An interesting thought, but unnecessary, IMO. We had purple magnets on doors to designate fall risk. Green to designate no English. Red equals NPO, etc. My experience shows no one really pays attention. So adding a "blind" magnet won't really help...

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I had a blind patient a couple of weeks ago. I gave him the nurse's call button and told him not to get up without calling me. I moved his finger to the big red button on the control. He said, "Oh I see, this one said nurse, this one said TV." He could read Braille!! I had forgotten there were braille letters on the button. I was so exited, I almost peed on myself! I had never met someone who can read braille before. I think it was because he was blind from birth. Most people get blinded because of diabetes and other things in adulthood.

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Specializes in retired LTC.
An interesting thought, but unnecessary, IMO. We had purple magnets on doors to designate fall risk. Green to designate no English. Red equals NPO, etc. My experience shows no one really pays attention. So adding a "blind" magnet won't really help...
WE went to a colored magnet system also. Problem was we had so many colors for so many different conditions nobody could keep track of the colors! And the other issue was the need to keep them accurately posted!!! System failure.

There's the need likewise to identify hearing-impaired pts. People will just tend to yell... Altho I did have a pt, professional career executive, who could 'sign' and lip-read. Hard part for staff was rememebering to face her directly when speaking...

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We used different color socks, for example red = fall risk. It was almost fail proof, as pretty much everyone's little tootsies are freezing while they are admitted.

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