How does YOUR hospital waste its money?

LilyBlue · Feb 22, 2009

We waste a lot of money in the form of inappropriate tasking. The idea seems to be: Make the RN do it all. They think this saves money, but it just leads to an overworked RN and lower patient satisfaction, so they take their business elsewhere.

What I mean is: Making RNs transport the patients all over the hospital instead of hiring transport aides, no pharmacists at night so RNs have to fetch and mix up their own drips, using RNs as nursing assistants (literally).

rhondaa83 · Feb 22, 2009

Like most hospitals, we are overwhelmed with busy work courtesy of the state and JCAHO. Not to mention the resident families, some of whom are more work than their patient. But we can't get enough staff to cover all this so that the nurses can nurse. Costs too much. So it drives me WILD when I think about how much money they throw away every day. To name a few: carefully prepared supplemental nutrition shakes that get thrown out because no-one has time to feed them to the patients, silly little contest prizes to make their employees feel "loved", employee surveys (that nobody will answer honestly because too much identifying data is asked for) to prove everyone is deliriously happy, and of course the ridiculous advertising wars with the other hospital in town. How does your hospital waste its health care dollars?

If this is your main concernand you are in nursing, then you should get out. If you are curious about how the hospital spends money then you should get a job in their business department, and then you can come back and complain. The grass is always greener on the other side.

Medic2RN, BSN, RN, EMT-P · Feb 22, 2009

If this is your main concernand you are in nursing, then you should get out.

Wow, I wonder....if every nurse who had these concerns just got up and left.....I don't think there would be many left in nursing.

Scrubby · Feb 22, 2009

If this is your main concernand you are in nursing, then you should get out. If you are curious about how the hospital spends money then you should get a job in their business department, and then you can come back and complain. The grass is always greener on the other side.

I think your comments are uncalled for.

If nurses want to take up higher positions such as management, nursing admin then YES we do have to have some awareness on how the hospital spends money. I've seen so much stuff thrown out in my hospital such as surgical mesh (which is expensive), staples, dressings, medication etc. I think that it's every nurses responsibility to try to minimise the wasting of resources.

nord11 · Feb 22, 2009

What really makes me angry about the hospital I work at is this. They say that we have to save money, not making enough (and for the past 4 months have stated that they were clearing about $800,000 - 900,000 a month) etc.... The number of managers pretty much equals the number of nurses here. They send (have a group of staff out right now) staff to the "Studer" training (which by the way costs $1200 a person - according to the studer site - not including the hotel and air travel, etc costs - 8 people). Then of course the nurses get hours cut, call, nurse to patient ratio goes up, patient satisfaction goes in the toilet. I could go on and on. Money is the focus here - NOT PATIENT CARE. The nurses here do a good job, but we can only do so much. I won't bend over and take it and will depart from this place shortly. I do my job because I CARE for my patients. When I don't have the things that I need to help take care of my patients - yeah, I get really ******. When the gods in management tie my hands behind my back, I don't like it and will move on to a greener pasture (or at least somewhere that does care about the people who pay their salary - the patient). I do have a choice and will use it when I feel it is necessary. Opinions are like *!?holes and we all have one. Some will agree and some won't.

HappyBunnyNurse · Feb 22, 2009

We water our sidewalks. :)

Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN · Feb 22, 2009

"Modernization."

Each bed comes with a flat, touch-screen television that is also wirelessly connected to the internet (a keyboard is available).

Everything has been made "beautiful" inside the hospital. The cafeteria is more attractive, the new tower is lovely...yet my floor is ridiculously understaffed and we are not allowed to hire any more nurses or techs unless they are transfers from other departments. And our "little sister" hospital in the city is far from beautiful, and it lacks in technology, equipment and available resources.

We've gotta keep up appearances, I guess. The staff will make do. We always have.

abbaking · Feb 22, 2009

Waste $$$$? Thats universal. My facility for example recently made a Christian-themed sculpture garden and waterfall in the main entrance - costs about $300,000.

Our senior management needs a reality check

We dont need a new sculpture garden (which in my community of high crime will lilely be vandalized)

WE NEED NEW EQUIPMENT!!!

The fact that we are using blood pressure machines from the 1980's is G-H-E-T-T-O.

CathyLew · Feb 22, 2009

We water our sidewalks. :)

Do they grow?

our hospital expects the nurses to do par-levels of floor stock. Like we have the time! and when someone finds a box of stuff that is outdated and has to be thrown out, the RN's get the blame. So what did they want us to skip while we do inventory and par levels, and check outdates on floor stock.....um should we skip giving meds that day? or skip patiten teaching? or just skip all the dressing changes for the day?

not to mention, if we did do it, you are paying an RN at RN wages to do something that could be done by someone getting a lot lower hourly wage.

Aneroo, LPN · Feb 22, 2009

We water our sidewalks. :)

LOL

Consultants. :icon_roll Sure, some are ok, but for every little thing they go out and hire someone to find out what the problem is.

zuzi · Feb 22, 2009

Ok you hitted me with this subject! I will tell you where the money went !

Part of money went on overtime payment...a big amount of them!

A good mind could analyze how much hospital spend in the last months paying overtime nurses. Was a big mess there with over staffing or under staffing times. Analysing retroactive what was happen there, I truly belive that it was just tolerated or in a good case is a result of incompentecy and biases of staffing personal.

And I will tell you how money flew...lool

In the condition when are A LOT of new graduate nurses knocking on hospital's doors, new young open to learn new thinks and with A LOT OF DEBTS behind them, you.... my dear hospital, you prefer to not hiring new graduates, but in the same time to pay over time for "oldies but goodies", to keep them warm and conffy, loool

Imagine an experienced nurse with 10-15-20 years experience at what amount will be her salary paymeny scale per hour?

And now imagine the situation: "the experineced nurse" is enough tired to work full time, but enough hungry to wants full time money. So how you deal with? Is a very simple trick by a nurse and she could work part time but to be payed for full time and HOSPITAL loose money!

Is a staffing arrangement! But staffing is subordonated to management.... so enough crazy in my logicality... is a management arrangement!

So my super duper nurse ,will work part-time but because we didn't had enough nurses, staffing will call her for overtime. Hospital will pay overtime. But an overtime for a nurse with 10-20 years experinece...IS A LOT of money flew for NOTHING. Why you didn't hire 2,3 recent graduate with a good perceptor????? Are the same money spent and you will have covering on all openings spots?

We needed there hard workers... and few playing money managerial games... work less payed hard, loool

But Who I am... a foreign nurse... ....loooool