Meeting Patient Expectations

[Gwen Johnson]

Patients with high expectations can be a challenge to work with, and sometimes it's hard to meet their expectations. Like most nurses, I was typically assigned a patient load of 5 patients. Two of my patients were in isolation and required total care, and the others were admitted for exacerbations of their chronic conditions. Inevitably, there was always 1 or 2 patients who were extremely demanding of either my time or the patient care assistant's time. The requests were usually non-urgent. It seemed the patient was lonely for conversation. Unfortunately, this caused delays in meeting the immediate needs of the other patients. This is especially true in the setting of budget and staffing cuts. As nurses, we know we can't always meet patient expectations. This puts immense strain on nurses who usually have lots of patients to look after. Hearing their patients are unhappy with their level of service can affect morale and put nurses under a great amount of negative stress. Hospitals can assist nurses by ensuring staffing is appropriate and encouraging Chaplin rounds on the floor. Likewise, it would be helpful for RNs to alternate with the patient care assistant to conduct hourly rounds on patients. This will allow nurses the opportunity to care for some of their other patients who need assistance. Have any of you ever experienced or cared for patients with high expectations? If so, how did you manage them?

[LaTonya Cawley]

Your topic/post is completely awesome! I instantly related. My mind went to the day I almost QUIT my California travel  contract. A Very Well Known Hospital System there has spoiled their patients. Those patients are unapologetic in their asking for a nurse to go above and beyond in their care as if they are the only patient that nurse has. During that assignment, realizing what I was up against, I made it a point to share with each patient their schedule for my time. I let them know how many other patients I had during their morning assessment, around what time to expect things to occur, and that myself or the Tech would help them if they needed assistance.

[Gwen Johnson]

Some patients are not grateful of the care they receive from the healthcare staff. I wish they understood how complex and difficult it is to provide quality healthcare, especially during urgent and emergency circumstances.

[LaTonya Cawley]

I have had patients ring their call lights during a code so that they could ask what is going on. They didn't "need" anything in particular. I am the type of nurse that seeks to anticipate my patient's needs. I try to be proactive in my patient care. Even beyond the "pain, potty, possessions." I am grateful for this AllNurses.com forum because conversations like this are not viewed as airing grievances. It's letting the Nursing community know that we see each other and we appreciate each other. We understand that we are not waitresses who bring medicine and that our thoughts/ feelings matter.