Yesterday, my director came over to me and said one of my patient's call bells was ringing for almost 4 1/2 minutes. I was stuck in an isolation room hanging blood. The aide leaves a lot to be desired, but I spoke with her and sounds like she was also in an isolation room cleaning up a big mess.
The director's ego seems to have been hurt because she mentioned family members were visiting and think "we don't take care of our patients." This director never yells or even raises her voice. She just has a way of letting you know about things. Kind of like "that look" your parents would give you when you were growing up! I'm pretty tough on myself about getting to patients quick, but wonder, what do you all do about call bells? I just think there's always things going on where you can't leave. We wear pagers and I knew this was a very stable patient thus didn't leave my other patient. The director did mention I needed to speak to the aide about moving quicker, but even that makes me wonder. I do believe this was just a time we couldn't get there in two seconds. Four minutes wasn't the end of the world in my opinion. I worked in LTC and those bells can ring for a very long amount of time. I really hated that and left soon after starting. While you never know what a ringing call might be for, you need to prioritize. I do find it crazy I had five patients spread out all over the entire floor. Why is it we can't have our patients on side of a floor instead of running from one end to the other?? At least that's the way it is or us. Once in a great while I have patients in closer rooms and it's so much easier and quicker!!
