Tweezer93

From an organization's standpoint, I can tell you that some but not all companies will report your action to your State's licensure board. This action, though, puts the facility at some risk by admitting your abandonment. This may be viewed as an admission of negative outcomes by the facility, which is not good for your case, by the way. The bottom line: Any time you walk off a care-related job without notice you ARE putting human beings at risk and you are putting yourself in serious jeopardy of future actions against your license and livelihood. http://nursinghomeguy.blogspot.com/

Come discuss life's mysteries... Why does my manager through my food and drinks away?

Today I attended a presentation on EMedPass. It is a new system, designed primarily for Long Term Care. It was pretty basic, but apparently better than several others presented to the group this week. Anyone have any familiarity? I posted my notes on the concept here: http://nursinghomeguy.blogspot.com/2007/04/electronic-med-pass.html Seems like a great idea (I'm a nursing home administrator) but some of the hang-ups/training issues/regulatory questions are still pretty large and waiting for an answer. Nurses, what ARE you using, if not paper?

As a Nursing Home Administrator, I've taken some time to reflect on this topic after our latest bad storm... http://nursinghomeguy.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-to-handle-snow-emergency.html Our organization excused all absences for a 48 hour period d/t the snow. The bottom line is that our employees are adults, and it must be their decision. I know I was out in the storm picking people up at their houses, and happy to do so. But I would feel horrible the first time I forced someone to come in that voiced concern and something happened.

Well, like I said, there's no intention of blame in my argument, just using the occurrence to point out the shortcomings of many abuse investigations. You certainly wouldn't want your name associated with a negative incident whether you were "guilty" or not. And I always am careful to not use a "guilty vs. not-guilty" approach. How often do we find a bruise of unknown origin on a resident that consequently has nothing to do with abuse? All food for thought. I'm just glad that if there was wrong-doing that the resident is now protected.

can a nursing facility publicize a suspension? [color=#336699]an lpn in ocala, fl has been suspended by the nursing home that she works for due to allegedly failing to report suspected resident abuse. the alleged abuser (a housekeeping employee) has been terminated, authorities are investigating, and the resident is receiving the appropriate assessment and treatment. but the abuse is not the only questionable act to come out of this facility. why is it public knowledge that this nurse has been suspended pending investigation? it has always been my practice to protect, to the best of my ability, any employee involved in an investigation that could jeopardize their professional well-being. our judicial system is based on an innocent until proven guilty premise, and an abuse investigation should follow a similar path. if you were issuing a written warning to an employee for a timeclock violation or smoking in the parking lot, you wouldn't post a memo in the breakroom letting everyone know that this person had been "written up." you wouldn't tell the cook and ask them to tell everyone else. discipline is intended to be educational, not punitive. work in this mindset and there is no value in other employees knowledge of the action. it is not always feasible to protect the identity of an employee under investigation from other employees and residents, but that should be the goal. using names and specifics are ultimately unavoidable in an effective investigation, and confidentiality is easily compromised the second an employee leaves your office. an investigation conversation should never begin with leading questions such as "have you ever seen john perkins abuse a resident?" this not only immediately implicates the employee (regardless of their guilt) but also takes all objectivity away from your investigation. remember, the goal of an investigation is to find the root cause of a problem, not to determine who is guilty. i can't answer why this lpn's suspension hit the ocala papers. perhaps it was a leak, perhaps an upset family, or perhaps the facility made it public knowledge. we won't blame the facility. but the question has to be asked, "why haven't we set standards for abuse investigations?" i guarantee that my facility measures are different from yours, and what you do to protect the resident and determine the root cause of the occurrence is different from the guy down the street. i propose that we begin to work on an industry standard for this situation. doing so would not only formalize the procedure for long term care professionals; it would also tell the consumer exactly what our industry was doing every time that abuse was reported to facility administration. let's use this current situation as an opportunity to examine our protocols for conducting fair investigations. as often as these situations arise, it is only fair to our residents and employees to treat each situation equally, protecting identities and reputations instead of just looking for someone to blame.

Please elaborate?