Meal time

[jessiern, BSN, RN]

This is a silly topic, I know. Sorry.

I have always worked at the same little town hospital. Love it, overall, don't see me leaving. But, that means I don' t know a lot except from clincals about other facilties.

We currently hired a few new nurses to our floor, which doesn't happen terribly often due to our small turnover rate. They were all amazed when they were expected to pass trays at meal time. I guess we've always done it that way, and it never struck me as odd.

At you facility, do ya'll pass the trays, or does dietary?

[RNgonewild]

Yes, we pass trays. It started out that the nurse should at least pass the breakfast trays, as to introduce herself to the patients. This is a mid-sized So. Cal hospital, we are not in the boonies. I have often told them it is a waste of nursing time and money for the hospital to be paying us to deliver/pick-up trays as opposed to having someone from dietary do it. And we also have celebration dinners(maternity floor), so in the evening we pass almost double the trays most of the time. I say it is tacky to have nurses doing this and a waste of money. And since we have to also pick up the trays, sometimes they sit in the patients rooms for several hours after a meal because we are too busy to do it. We may have one tech to assist with this, and volunteers also. As for bringing in the breakfast tray and greeting the patient, I say we can do that greeting during the morning assessment. Plus there are some nurses that will let their patients trays sit for some time, with the hope of others passing them(and it does happen of course). Did I mention dietary will often pick up the cart early, so trays pile up in the dirty utility room, often overnite, disgusting! Next thing they will have us mowing the lawns.

[loriangel14, RN]

In the hospital where I work dietary passes the trays and picks them up, usually within an hour and a half or so. Nurses assist with setting up trays, opening drinks, buttering toast etc.

[akcarmean, LPN]

In the LTC I have worked at it has always been the CNA that pass the trays and keep track of the I&O's of people who needed it tracked, then passed in information on to the nurses.

As nurses we were passing medication at the time breakfast, lunch & dinner were being served.

That was back in IL. and the one LTC place I have worked at here in NV.

Right now I am in HH so not sure about the hospitals here.

[Ms Kylee]

Dietary passes the trays and picks them up if and when they feel like it. They will not go into isolation, so the aides have to do it. Aides also pull patients up in bed and set the patients up that can feed themselves. Patients that need fed are the aide's responsibility.