improving staff responsiveness

rngolfer53 · Oct 27, 2011

This call light problem and, ALL PROBLEMS (yeah, pretty much all problems) can be handled by safe nurse/patient/tech ratios. Just hire the amount of staff needed to treat patients the way we all want them treated. Done. See, it's not rocket science.

This is the flip side of managers' magical thinking that doesn't recognize the scarcity of the resource of nursing and CNA time.

Yes, we can all say better staffing will cure all problems (and it will help with quite a few), but the problem of paying for it doesn't go away by saying "it's not rocket science."

inshallamiami · Oct 27, 2011

This is the flip side of managers' magical thinking that doesn't recognize the scarcity of the resource of nursing and CNA time.
Yes, we can all say better staffing will cure all problems (and it will help with quite a few), but the problem of paying for it doesn't go away by saying "it's not rocket science."

Okay, we can pay for better staffing with less managers and cutting corporate salaries.

RottieGrlLPN · Oct 27, 2011

IMHO, some of us will give all we have and it will never be enough. You can't squeeze any more juice from an orange that has nothing left to give, in other words you are damned if you do and damned if you dont. Laymens terms- I am a new nurse, my med pass takes me forever; when I see someone who needs help I help them. Then of course I'm even later with my meds and get scolded like a puppy dog with my nose being rubbed in it, so I begin to resent the fact that I even bothered showing up for "orientation" WHICH is a big fat joke. I guess I suck at time management is what I would imagine I would be told.

fuzzywuzzy, CNA · Oct 27, 2011

and even if we get "seasoned" nurses that are used to letting someone else answer their call lights, we "guilt" them into participating "Oh, YOUR pts call light was going off for quite some time, I stopped what I was doing to check on them and they would like pain medicine now."

That's very passive-aggressive and probably makes the situation worse, actually. I work with someone like that- she won't lift a finger to help anyone else and on the rare occasion that she does, she makes the other person feel like a jerk about it by using that same tactic: "Mr X rang and I emptied his urinal FOR YOU." :bowingpur Then she'll try to throw you under the bus by bringing it up numerous times in front of the nurse, like she had to do all this extra work while the rest of us were off in a corner somewhere, painting our nails or something.

She is so aggravating that no one helps her with anything.

As for the rest of us, we toilet each other's residents, make each other's beds, answer each other's call lights, etc. without making martyrs of ourselves, and it works out nicely. If someone assigned to a difficult resident is burned out from answering their call lights every 2 minutes all day, someone else will do them a solid and take over for a while.

Sanuk · Oct 27, 2011

I find it incredible that the hospital needs a team to come up with why it takes so long to answer a call light. Uh, perhaps the nurses are too busy? Why don't you tell them to increase staffing and I bet the lights get answered faster. I need to go into consulting. :rolleyes:

inshallamiami · Oct 27, 2011

Fuzzywuzzy, You and your co-workers sound wonderful. Sometime a team just "clicks" ! Except for the one......

Daliadreamer · Oct 27, 2011

We have a "No Pass Zone" on our unit. If a light is on, you are not allowed to pass it up, you have to go into the room and at least find out what the patient needs. The nurse has her phone number listed on the white board in the room, so whoever answers the light can call the nurse and remind her what the patient needs. Sometimes the patient hits the light on accident, and this saves the nurse from leaving a patient that needs her (him). This creates more teamwork on the unit because we help each other out more.

When we started out the program, we would hand out 'tickets' if we saw someone else answer our own patient call lights, and the tickets would go in a drawing at the end of the week for a small prize our manager would purchase. It works :)

beckster_01, BSN, RN · Oct 27, 2011

I find a real problem is people(Nurses and CNAs alike) who don't run like a ninja to bed alarms! Drives me up the wall....

This reminds me of one of my co-workers. He literally SPRINTS to answer bed alarms. I mean we all run to him, but he is somewhat dramatic about it. There was one time when a patient was almost on the floor and he practically slid on his knees, catching the patient's head just in time. We give "stars" to coworkers who stand out...he got one :)

classicdame, MSN, EdD · Oct 27, 2011

Hourly rounding greatly reduced our calls, but we do have pagers and the unit clerk is to page the CNA/Nurse for call lights. We no longer allow the call to be turned off at the nurses' station. Has to be done at bedside.

OCNRN63, RN · Oct 27, 2011

Take away the "That's not MY patient/job" mentality. Everyone where I work answers call lights regardless of whose pt. it is including the ward clerk and DON. It only takes a second of your time to see what the patient wants/needs and relay that to their nurse/CNA. This isn't a directive from above, it's just the mentality our staff has here. I know that whenever I am precepting someone I always instill this into them, and even if we get "seasoned" nurses that are used to letting someone else answer their call lights, we "guilt" them into participating "Oh, YOUR pts call light was going off for quite some time, I stopped what I was doing to check on them and they would like pain medicine now."

I'm a "seasoned" nurse, and I certainly don't have that mentality. Neither do the other "seasoned" nurses I know.

Creamsoda, ASN, RN · Oct 28, 2011

Take away their call light. Oops did I just say that?

anotherone, BSN, RN · Oct 28, 2011

I am part of team looking to find ways toimprove staff responsiveness to pt's requests/calllights? Anybody who would like to share tips/ideas how you facility/floor has tackled this issue, would be greatly appreciated:)

Hire more staff. That worked better for my unit!