How long does it take to answer a call light?

At our facility, it depends. The initial call light remains green for 3 minutes, then it goes yellow, red, then gray. Gray is when the excrement hits the fan because at that point it has been on for over 15 minutes. Most of the aides on my shift seem to wait until it has turned yellow. I try to answer them as promptly as possible but there are times that I get stuck in certain residents' rooms and cannot answer additional lights. If everyone were to work together as we are required, it wouldn't be an issue.

My facility doesn't have a time limit. I could be in a room for 20 mins. that light will still be on when I get out. At my old facility they had to be answered in 8 mins. after that the nurse has to answer it.

My facility also wants call lights answered within five minutes - but thats for both room lights and bathroom lights. The nurses carry pagers that go off after a light has been on for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, etc; and the DON has a pager that will go off after a fifteen minute call light (hers go off even when she has it at home, and she'll call the facility to see why that happened).

Yes it can be difficult to answer lights within the time limit, but if everyone works together it is possible. Work on getting your time down to the minimum in rooms, and try to make sure everyone is acting as a team and helping each other out.

We don't have time limits. We try and get to the lights in a timely manner but there are only 2 of us on at night and if I'm down long 1 and the buzzer goes off down long 2 and I'm in the middle of changing someone, well I guess the person in long 2 will have to wait. Unless it is a bed alarm and then one of us looks out to see who it is and how urgent it is we get there.

If there was adequate staffing the bells wouldn't ring long.....once again shaking my head.

Yes I agree with this totally.

If there was adequate staffing the bells wouldn't ring long.....once again shaking my head.

Hear hear. Or in the case of the facility where I work, adequate staffing and *quality* staffing.

Wouldn't it be great if the next time the DON calls in to find out why her call light pager went off, someone had the balls to say, "Because we don't have enough staff to meet those time limits. Maybe you should do something about that."

A girl can dream.....

Wouldn't it be great if the next time the DON calls in to find out why her call light pager went off, someone had the balls to say, "Because we don't have enough staff to meet those time limits. Maybe you should do something about that."

A girl can dream.....

In my case, it's the facility's administrator who does this and someone has and she still doesn't get it. Go figure.

My facility doesn't have a time limit, and doesn't monitor how long they have been ringing, but personally, I do try to answer as soon as I can. Often I am stuck with one patient for a while, but generally, if that is the case, one of my co workers will answer it for me, and if I hear a call bell ringing and I am free, I will answer it even if it's not on my assignment. At night on some wards, there is just 2 nurses and 1 assistant for anything up to 30 patients, so it is hard. In the day with 3/4 assistants on it is easier.

Only CNAs answer call lights my facility. And there is no time limit to when a call light must be answered. That said, everyone is pretty prompt about answering 'their' call lights but doesn't usually answer 'other CNAs call lights'. The only time there is a hold up is if I'm with another resident. Depending on the resident, depends on how quickly I try to answer the light if I'm already with a resident. One resident has her call light going off every forty-five mins for BR, but has cath. So she can wait a bit longer if I'm with someone else. But if it's someone who rarely calls, I try to get there as fast as possible.

There are a couple ways around this.....what I would do Is if I saw one of my patients lights go off I would go to find out what they needed and if time allowed I would do it right then, If I didn't have time right then I would turn the light off and let them know I'd be with them as soon as I possibly can. You can't take 5 people to the bathroom in 3 minutes!! The other thing I would do Is if I put someone in the bathroom I would make sure I didn't go far so that I could listen/watch for the light. No one should have to sit in the bathroom for more than 3 mintues, to me, those lights are the most important. If I thought the patient in the bathroom was going to take a long time I would move on to the next room or to the persons roommate and get started, but make sure whatever it was that I could walk away if I needed to. As long as your patient is safe you don't need to stay there from start to finish if there are other things you need to go run and do.....a lot of times I would get someone set up for bed for example, tell them to do the best they could getting dressed without standing up and I"ll be right with you....this gives them a sense of independence and frees you up to go and answer another light or what have you. Its not always possible and management will probably always have demands that cant be met. All you can do is your best when the demands aren't realistic.