It just never ends. For the last year or more, management has been harping about hourly rounds. They have gone as far as to go in to rooms with us and watch us do our hourly rounds, making sure we have hit each key behavior. Also, they will go to each pt daily and ask about our hourly rounds. NOW... they have come up with the idea of call-lights needing to be answered within 2 minutes (it will soon go down to 1 min) and if it is not, at the end of the shift, we have to "sign off" on it. They have also now put up a poster board in the middle of the hall with each nurse's name. We get stars next to our names if none of our call-lights were >2min. It is crap like this that makes me want to leave the bedside. I do not have to be "shamed" to answer my pt's call-lights. I would not mind if it were in the breakroom, locker room, med room, but I have a huge issue with it being in the hallway. Some nurses only work 2 days a week, others 5. If I were a pt or family member and I were to look at that board and my nurse did not have many stars, I think I would assume that generally she/he was not good at answering their pt's call-lights. Also, it is a team effort. There are times we are all "stuck" in a room for a good amount of time. How am I supposed to be both in the hall at all times watching for call-lights and in my pts room doing my job?? Not possible. I also would not have a problem if the poster board was separated in shifts with no names and stars given to each shift for call-lights >2 minutes. I spoke with my director about it and she sounded annoyed with me and said this a positive thing and is supposed to be a fun game. I told her my concerns and why I disagree with it (mostly being where she has displayed it) and I told her not one person I have spoken to is happy about it. She completely did not hear or understand my concerns. I went as far as asking her if she were still on the floor how she would feel, to which I did not get a decent reply.
I am curious how others would feel about this. Am I being ridiculous because that this is really annoying me??
Seriously, do they think they are going to "improve" patient care by having you leave patient A in the middle of something to go to patient B to tell them you're going to be 5 minutes because you're with patient A. This sort of thing only makes Patients A & B both mad, instead of just patient B waiting a few minutes.
Not to mention I'm sure such a management has told you to pretend you don't have any other patients.
Quite frankly, if management has the time to monitor this sort of crap, there is obviously waaayy toooo much management and too little staff. Time to cut a little off the top, I say.
What an absolute and utter nonsense! Sounds like the management was getting low satisfaction scores from pts due to poor staffing and a "natural way" to solve the problem: make already overworked nurses work even harder and punish them if they won't. It's funny, how all the facilities come up with very similar nonsensical solutions. Our facility's new project: asking pt their goal for the day and writing it on the board. The other day my pt wanted me to write "do a large poop"!
Reason #1 why I think all management should either have experience in bedside nursing or spend a few hours every week. All that time wasted on implementing this idea, making the sign and "educating" everyone on it, could have been time that they could have answered lights themselves. This is just unreal.
Either as St Neotster says ignore the damn thing , or if the stars are readily available you and you colleagues should add stars randomly to the thing , so that it becomes obvious to staff and patients its a waste of time .
As one contributor pointed out those that really need to use the call system are least able to use it eg. coding patient isn't going to suddenly think , better press the call bell while I code so my nurse will come !
a "fun game"? :barf01: and gold stars go out of vogue sometime around the third grade... my sympathies!
and the prize is ......drum roll .......you keep your job !......and wait in anticipation of the next stupid idea .
I do get the intention , but when will these people understand , we are NURSES our primary role is to ensure the well being of the patients health , we should do this in a manner that also maimtains the patients psychological well being / happiness , but to promote customer satisfaction to such a degree it impinges upon our ability to deliver good clinical care puts the patients at risk .
If you are well enough to be worried about how long your nurse is taking to answer the call bell , maybe you are in the wrong place ! .
I agree with the above poster who says that it's a knee-jerk reaction related to the satisfaction scores. I read that those scores will play a part in reimbursement, so this is why all the attention to them.
Otessa, BSN, RN
1,601 Posts
That would feel like high school. I would start looking for other employment, if able.