LET'S MAKE SOME CHANGES!

K+MgSO4, BSN · Feb 2, 2020

You need to ask the staff in your area what are the issues. We can't answer this question.

E.g. my staff asked for more decent IV poles. I could do that. I couldn't renovate the medication room as I don't have the authority to spend that much money.

I bring up the question in a number of forums - meetings, butcher paper in the tea room, votes on our social media. Things that made their life easier....

ClaraRedheart, BSN, RN · Feb 2, 2020

I think this question is highly unit specific. Not even specific enough for a particular hospital or specialty. I just did a costly EBP fellowship for our hospital, and the question that I had tackled was highly relevant to our unit and our patient population. It had a good outcome that is likely cost-saving as well, so... win/win for all involved. But my problem is not going to be your unit's problem. Send out a questionaire. Ask, "what could we as a unit do better". Or, "Have you had to do a work around when providing patient care"? Make the surveys anonymous. Some of the the things that our unit did that I didn't realize WASN'T normal practice was to dilute EVERYTHING (dilaudid, zofran, morphine, hydralazine, labetolol, etc..) in a 10cc flush. Our nurses literally (some of them) think that it's unsafe to give dilaudid undiluted. Some EBP has come about recently to refute this, and I still can't change their minds, even with the articles. https://www.myamericannurse.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ant4-Fresenius-IV-Push-325a.pdf A chart showing EBP regarding what to give straight and what to dilute, along with times and possible issues is a good idea, and we're working on it.

My other recent, most obnoxious unit problem was a faulty old bladder scanner that everyone trusted for some reason, but it was terrible. i had two readings on two different patients for amounts above 300 mL. Once I reported these to the MD and obtained a straight catheritzation order, I got less than 200 mL in each patient. This was with the same terrible piece of dinosaur equipment that most of the staff tends to trust, though our new nice one that actually SHOWS the bladder in the sonogram as you scan it was out for repair. i really don't think that it's right to subject a patient to an invasive procedure with information based on equipment that is known to be varient. I've mentioned this to my manager. A second good bladder scanner would be nice, if that's not too much to ask for.

Also, we have amazing IV poles, but our patients can't push them across the lip in the bathroom, that supposedly prevents water spills in the room. But, they fall there. Can we just get rid of it?

tawill5 · Feb 2, 2020

Thank you so much! Your input is very helpful!

tawill5 · Feb 2, 2020

Thank you so much K+MgSO4. Your response was very helpful!