Opinions on scripting

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Alot of workplaces are promoting "scripting" now. It really makes me uncomfortable, administration getting a script out of some book and then telling staff what they are supposed to say, and everyone saying the same thing. It's like brainwashing or something. They're trying to do this were I work and I don't like it one bit. I feel disingenuous using someone else's words and not my own. Sure, politeness and a certain level of decorum should be expected, but to actually put the words in my mouth? It's like we have to "toe the party line" or else. Am I out to pasture on this, or does anyone else think this scripting stuff is a crock?

Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

Haven't, don't, and won't use a script. I have been giving my patients safe, competent care for almost 8 years now without one. Now, that doesn't mean I don't have a mental list of things to do/say while I'm in a certain patient's room, but I'm not going by a list of things someone else has given me just so Press-Gainey or whoever will be happy.

Specializes in ER and Home Health.

Actually I love scripting. The things we script are all things we should be saying anyway. So no harm. Every restaurant you go to now has taught scripting to its employees. Same with department stores and everything else. As you get used to scripting, you find it in yourself in your routine daily responses to others. You hear it everywhere. You hear scripting at movie theaters even.

In fact I heard myself saying after a romantic date. "Is there anything else I can get or do for you, I have the time now":imbar:loveya:

Specializes in L & D; Postpartum.
Actually I love scripting. The things we script are all things we should be saying anyway. So no harm. Every restaurant you go to now has taught scripting to its employees. Same with department stores and everything else. As you get used to scripting, you find it in yourself in your routine daily responses to others. You hear it everywhere. You hear scripting at movie theaters even.

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Yeah, well, when you've been saying those same things from the heart and because you really care for 32 years, and all of a sudden, some high heels/clipboard type says you MUST say them, they start to ring hollow. And whoever said our patients are smarter than that, is exactly right.

I've had patients, even visitors, comment on it, saying "are you going to parrot the same things the last 3 nurses did?" They know what's happening, and it doesn't impress them, make them feel like they are getting better care or any of that. I think they would much prefer some individuality, both in the care they get and from the way the caregiver interacts with them.

Specializes in ER and Home Health.

So then, is it the scripting or is it the fact we are being told to do so. Scripting is easy. Educating patients is easy. For example when educating a patient about say. lortabs. How often do you change what you say or like me do you say the same thing everytime.

Specializes in L & D; Postpartum.
So then, is it the scripting or is it the fact we are being told to do so. Scripting is easy. Educating patients is easy. For example when educating a patient about say. lortabs. How often do you change what you say or like me do you say the same thing everytime.

I think, for me, it's a combination. Not only am I being told to say something, but I'm being told HOW to say it. As if the past 32 years isn't proof that I have a brain, can think about how best each individual patient can assimilate what they hear, and have been pretty successful in determining how to figure that out---without some executive somewhere deciding it for me. And all this to secure a good rating on a telephone poll. Puh-leeze.

Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

For me, it is the fact that the scripting is so obvious, and so not tailored to each specific patient. I do go into pretty much every patient's room and say "Hi, I'm Elvish, and I'll be your nurse til 7am, so you're pretty much stuck with me for 12 hours [obviously meant to break the ice and be mildly funny]. If you have any questions, or need anything, please call me. You know where the call bell is, right?" That's about the only thing I tell everybody. Other than that, it depends on the patient, her level of health literacy, her cultural background, and her individual preferences.

Specializes in L & D; Postpartum.

The term insincere comes to mind when I think of scripting.

Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

VERY insincere.

Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

"Stefford Wives" comes to mind for me. I hate it. My facility comes up with that mess every now and then, but there are too many of us and too few really interested in enforcing it (thank goodness...a sigh of relief for me...)

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

It freaks patients out too. Imagine hearing from every nurse/care provider who enters your room, "is there anything else, I have the time". Comments from patients included feeling like robots were taking care of them, or there were Stepford nurses at that hospital. They hate it, too. It insults their and our intelligence.

Scripting is easy. Educating patients is easy. For example when educating a patient about say. lortabs. How often do you change what you say or like me do you say the same thing everytime.

Really? Education is easy? When you are teaching a semi-literate 75-year-old farmer with mild dementia it's easy? Do you teach him in the same way you teach the PhD-prepared physical therapist? When you have an opioid-abusing patient who you know takes more than his prescribed dose just to get straight do you educate him the same way you would my mom, who's scared to take too much aspirin?

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

Education and teaching are NOT easy. First, you have to find the time to do this among the myriad other tasks that take your energy; interruptions in our work are a given. How many times I have been in the middle of patient teaching when another patient wants pain meds, wants her discharge NOW, or someone else needs help to go to the bathroom, for instance. And charting this all takes a lot of time, too!

Second, not everyone is open to being taught anything. Noncompliance is an everyday issue with many patients. Third, rapid discharges and shorter stays mean even less time to get all the teaching done. It's far from "easy" IMO. But still very important.

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