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??
Do the CNA's have a sticker board too? Not everything is the nurses responsibility.
Tait
PS. I get the intention, but the delivery sucks.
LOL! That is unrealistic no matter who is responsible unless they hire a sitter for every patient.
Depending on the hospital's design, it may take 4 minutes to get to the room if its all the way down hall A & you are on Hall C.
Despite emergent situations & bathroom breaks...you know sometimes we may have patients on 3 different halls.
At my hospital I'm surprised they don't have assignments with patients split between floors...Imagine having to take a elevator or the stairs to get to different patients' rooms....LoL!
Look for another job and tell the other nurses to come with you. It's odd this is being directed only at the nurses and not the CNAs as well. Either way however it is totally unrealistic and I would ignore it.
I can't imagine working in a place like that. I have to agree, you must have too much management, with too much time on their hands. Wonder what class this person took to come up with this hairbrained idea? Seems like this would be a great divide and conquer idea, to pit staff against each other. I think that the public would even think that they've walked into a kindergarten instead of a hospital. I feel sorry for you. Hopefully they will see the error of their ways and quit this nonsence soon.
Specializes in Neuroscience/Neuro-surgery/Med-Surgical/.
I am so very tired of clueless management/administration coming up with these juvenile ideas. Can you degrade us more with this stupid star system? Next a public flogging?
We are professionals, and should be treated as such.
Personally, I would see to it that this board would mysteriously disappear......
The person who came up with that idea has clearly never been stuck with a disoriented, agitated, rapid Afib, C-Diff diarrhea patient before
Sometimes, you literally CANNOT get away! It's a team effort, gosh.
You know, I can't believe the things these people come up. Do you think they're hired just to annoy us? If it weren't for these dumb rules they make, they wouldn't have a job. Ignore them and they might go away? Wishful thinking. I can see this one going by the wayside real quick.
Why does one profession have this nonsense and another doesn't?
For example, do you see physicians posting boards with their names putting stars up for the physician who returns a nurses page or calls back a patient within so much time? Of course not. This should never be an acceptable practice for any professional group of people. Why do nurses do this to themselves? It hurts the whole profession. Everyone walking by that board probably snickers.
I would have handed in my notice the day that board went up. This crap reinforces my desire to stay away from the bedside and stupid managers. My last manager would occasionally grace us with her presence when it was really crazy in the ED. She didn't know how to do an EKG or anything useful so she would "help" by triaging..only she'd take a half hour to triage one pt..real helpful, while people are keeling over in the waiting room!
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
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??
Thanks,
Deb
*** Your "managment" is being ridiculous. I so wish I knew what hospital you worked at so that I can make sure I never apply for a job there.
Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.
I can't imagine working in a place like that. I have to agree, you must have too much management, with too much time on their hands. Wonder what class this person took to come up with this hairbrained idea? Seems like this would be a great divide and conquer idea, to pit staff against each other. I think that the public would even think that they've walked into a kindergarten instead of a hospital. I feel sorry for you. Hopefully they will see the error of their ways and quit this nonsence soon.
*** This is the kind of stuff you get when too many nurse managers have masters in nursing instead of real managment training as in other fields. I would have either ignored the whole thing or handed in my notice.
This is just outright ridiculous. I hate these stupid kindergarten antics that come about in the nursing profession. Is it true that some people suck at answering call lights? Yes. But there is also an unsaid system to call lights that management just doesn't get. I will use longterm care as an example. Every night the same people put their call lights on at the same time when they want the CNAs to know they are ready to go to bed. I will be in the middle of my med pass as this is going on, and someone could put their light on while their aid is finishing up another resident. What I do, is go to the room with their medicine, and let them know the status of their CNA, give them their meds, ask them if there is anything else that they need, and then I leave the room with their call light still on. Why? So that if I don't get to see their CNA right away, that they are aware that the patient is waiting. To an admin or outsider on the floor, all this looks like is a bunch of call lights being on and not being answered. So every time management starts doing these call light audits, I just roll my eyes. They just don't get the system of things. If a bed alarm goes off, you better bet I drop everything to answer the light. Call lights being on doesn't always mean negligent staff or unhappy patients.
One of our recent rules put in by management, is the "answer the phone in less than five rings rule." When I'm clear down the end of the hall decked out in sterile gloves performing a straight cath on someone and faintly hear that phone ring at the nurses station, I just laugh. Let me go run and answer that! haha Yeah right. They even put in some portable phones for us to have on our nurses cart while we are down the hall passing meds. So yeah, I'm still not going to interrupt patient care to run to my car to answer the portable. And even when I'm at my cart down the hallway and I do answer it, the call 99% of the time involves me having to walk back down to the nurses station to look at a chart or get on the computer.
This sounds drastic, but ... transfering to another floor would probably fix your problem. They may have the boards system-wide, but the location of these boards may change.
I guess the thing I would bring up is this: If you were to apply for a job at your current hospital, (at least in OH, but may be in other states, so I have nothing to work off of other than here) it's ILLEGAL for your hospital HR dept to phone any former employers and ask them questions like, "How is their work ethic. Are they a good employee. Etc". I'm not talking "not right", I'm talking law-suit, could win you lots of cash if it was proven type of thing.
This being said, evals are "private" and are NOT a group thing for the most part. Heck every place I've ever worked has had their evals in private ... complete with a closed office door and a DND sign. This being said, the thing they're posting is an eval-level item and should not only be placed in an "offstage" area, but more appropriately given to you as a weekly or monthly printout.
The thing that would pi** me off the most about this entire situation, myself, is that YOU are not the only one responsible for your patient, NOR your patients call light. By working on a floor, you are A TEAM. The NA's are part of your team, the unit clerks are part of your team, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY if somebody hears an overtime call light, they should step up as well!
I would maybe sit down with her behind a closed door and reiterate your feelings. If it helps, right down your bullet points. If that doesn't work, then hand the bullet points of why this is a bad thing to do and why it's inappropriate for it to be displayed in the public view.
gcupid
528 Posts
LOL! That is unrealistic no matter who is responsible unless they hire a sitter for every patient.
Depending on the hospital's design, it may take 4 minutes to get to the room if its all the way down hall A & you are on Hall C.
Despite emergent situations & bathroom breaks...you know sometimes we may have patients on 3 different halls.
At my hospital I'm surprised they don't have assignments with patients split between floors...Imagine having to take a elevator or the stairs to get to different patients' rooms....LoL!