1. At IU, there are at least 7-8 RN's on duty at the Indiana University Home dialysis clinic.....
2. At IU, the dialysis clinic Nursing staff enjoys good wages and plenty of time off....
3. At IU, the vast majority of the Nursing staff has been there at least 20 years and many have been there over 30 years, a few have been there 35 years.
4. At IU, the Nursing looks at long-term costs, instead of short term costs.....
5. At IU, the Nursing staff has a great amount of power to make decisions......
6. The IU staff teaches home dialysis how to correctly clean fistulas, the IU infection rate for fistulas is zero.
7. I would do anything the IU Nursing staff would ask me to do. This includes getting up at 4 am to receive a treatment at the clinic and afterwards to have my fistula looked at, by a IU nephrologist/surgeon...... at the IU Hospital in Indianapolis. If you are curious, it is a 120 mile drive one way from my house to IU.
8. The IU Nursing staff looks out for the Home dialysis patient and is constantly reading the latest research. Many in medicine, I have noticed, could care less.
9. The best thing is last, they always ask me how they can improve, and honestly, I cannot think of anything. My RN case manager jumped my case about my blood sugar scores, my three month scores and she was right. The issue is that I was not getting enough sleep or I put off sleeping. The IU Nursing staff said that controlling blood sugar without the proper sleep is nearly impossible... With sleeping, my A1C score tanked to 5.4. Without her, might have lost my vision in the long run, that would have been a disaster.
I like Davita Nurses, what I do not like is how they are treated. This is more about bashing Davita management. Making money is not evil and every group has to make money at some point. However, as my RN mom said years ago, 12 hour days is not good or healthy for the Nurse nor the patient, I would have to agree..... The Nurse also needs a meal break to control their blood sugar and to be able to think straight and rationally for the dialysis patient. It is also insane that the Nurse cannot get any time off, this is very unhealthy. I worked for a company like that and after a certain point, I really started to resent them. You mean to tell me that you cannot have enough staffing when you are spending how much on that drunkfest, every year? I know that many Davita Nurses resent the management excesses of Davita management and so do the Davita dialysis patients. Many Davita Nurses are fired for disagreeing with this style of management and many Davita patients are discharged for complaining about the crappy care that is dished out by Davita management. I have had many Nurses who worked for Davita say that they were afraid for the safety of the patients, that does not surprise me. The Davita RN is taking care of how many patients at time, again? Then, if something happens, it is all on the Davita RN, how goofy. You can better believe that management will not be taking the blame that the care standard was started by them in the first place. I would love Thiry and his management friends to have some of the care that he thinks is so great for us or take care of zillion patients at one time. When I was In-Center, I learned to put in my own needles and run some parts of the machine.
I love being at home and that is one less patient that the Davita RN has to take care of, God knows they have more than enough work to do......
