So I am having an issue with giving a particular nurse report. The problem is that she expects the reporting nurse to "spoon feed" her every minute detail beginning with circumstances surrounding reason for admission up to the current time. She's expects this from everyone, not only me and it's well known throughout our unit that if you see that you're giving report to this person, you know you will not be leaving on time.
Some of our patients have quite lengthy stays and are very complex, depending on their circumstances and you can imagine where it then becomes tedious to review every single thing/test/lab/etc that has occurred.
Recently, as one example, she was receiving three patients and another nurse had started giving her report on two of those patients. I also had to give report on three patients; I gave report on two of mine to another nurse in fifteen minutes. I go over to where the nurse who takes forever is getting report and wait for about ten minutes. Finally, I say something like, "all done?" or "You ready for me?" and I am told they have just finished report on ONE patient. So it's now 25 minutes into the half hour we have to give report and I am expected to wait likely another 20 minutes to even begin. The nurse giving her report kind of rolled their eyes as they know how it is.
I know that the charge nurses and manager are aware of this but everyone accommodates her repeatedly.
My question is....how can I put my foot down and refuse to stay over every time I give her report, based solely on the fact that she asks a million nonpertinent questions, interrupts constantly and wants to be informed of every little detail? I would like to say to her, when it's time for me to leave and it's obvious I'm not going to get done anytime soon (or haven't even begun yet), "I have updated the report sheet....any further questions can be directed to the charge nurse as I have obligations at home and I must leave on time today." Of course I would notifiy the charge nurse also. I don't want to to be accused of patient abandonment.
We have switched to bedside report and this has eliminated a lot of these problems. I wonder if other people that do bedside report continue to have these same problems or if they have improved?
Make a written report sheet and give that to her. Go over the sheet together and keep your report short, sweet and to the point. Don't wait for her to write everything down--just keep talking.
Anything not pertinent to the patient's plan of care for today isn't brought up--if she wants to know, the chart is available to her. You and your coworkers have to be consistent in not giving long reports to this nurse. Not everything from the patient's admission to the present is worth bringing up, especially if they've been at the hospitals for longer than a few weeks.
And if this keeps up, bring it to management...especially if you have to stay overtime to give reports.
No advice as it's been going on for years and nothing has been done here. The management gripes about us leaving late but don't address people like this despite our complaints.
My coworker did this. We were all tired of being griped at for going into OT when we had to give her report. We went to management, and management told her that we would only provide basics. If she wanted more, she could come in before her shift, off the clock, or come in 15 earlier and count it as a break. I would agree that people who rely only on others' verbal reports are lazy and rather scary. She tried to resist and beg for information. We refused. She quit. Problem solved.
"Ain't nobody got time for that!" Haha....I had to. Please tell me someone knows what I'm referring to.....if not, google that phrase and watch the video. It's funny :)
Do you work on my floor?:) No advice as it's been going on for years and nothing has been done here. The management gripes about us leaving late but don't address people like this despite our complaints.
Yep, same here....I think I'm just going to have to tell her flat out that I cannot spend 20-25 minutes discussing ONE patient. If others want to coddle her, so be it. At least she'll know that she won't get away with it with me. And, I'll actually get out of there on time! :)
"Ain't nobody got time for that!" Haha....I had to. Please tell me someone knows what I'm referring to.....if not, google that phrase and watch the video. It's funny :)
Lol! Sweet Brown is so funny! I say this all the time!
Sent from my iPhone using allnurses. Angi/LPN (?RN)
Haha, I know one of these too! I have no advice for you, I just try and take it in good humour and since I work at an ICU with a SAFE nurse to patient ratio, it's significantly less annoying to only have to hand over one patient. We have a really great computer program which takes all the patients most relevant information and brings it onto one screen which I normally read from for handover and it makes me laugh to watch this nurse try and rapidly write down everything that is already written on the computer word for word. These people typically have really poor time management skills, which is why they need to know every detail - they don't have time check the chart because they are too busy wasting time.
chuchie, ADN, BSN, MSN, LPN, APRN, NP
106 Posts
We have switched to bedside report and this has eliminated a lot of these problems. I wonder if other people that do bedside report continue to have these same problems or if they have improved?