Policies and Procedures?

[mommy2boysaz]

For those of you managing a hospital department(s), do you have lots of policies and procedures to maintain or are you just referencing textbooks instead of writing policies? I've worked places recently that have done it each way. Which is recommended and why and by whom?

Thanks!

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

If you give a reference then it needs to be accessible to the staff. we have Mosby's Nursing Skills on all the computers in the patient care areas.

The problem with procedures being written down is that the procedure changes over time but the written word does not. Also, unless you have legal counsel to write them, they could serve as contracts and cause all kinds of trouble if interpreted in various ways. To me it is safer to document training and competency as opposed to having a procedure that holds us to the wall.