lcbaird

There are nursing shortages in other countries also and we should not try to take nurses away from their homes. Also, there are differences in nursing training throughout the world. Some nurses would be able to adjust to our health care system and our roles and many others would not. Same old story "a nurse is a nurse is a nurse". Not really.

We usually do transport to the OR in the bed but in this case the bed the patient was on was not one of our beds and we were going to get an appropriate bed for post op and take it to the OR when it arrived. When we used the gurney to transfer we were accused of some "great" breach in the standard of care that could cause major complications. I agree it's much easier for all to take them over on the bed and bring them back on the bed. The ward nurses thinking was this was not different than taking them to the CAT scan. Transfer to gurney and then to the OR table, post op bring the bed to the OR. Another interesting note is the doctors and their nurse practioners are not using "Bucks traction" much any more, just splinting with pillows.

From the bed to the stretcher on a slide board with the hip splinted.

I manage a general med/surg was that has some (mostly geriatric) orthopedics. We often have fractured hip patients who stay pre op for at least 24 hours prior to going to OR for repair. We just had a fractured hip patient who was scheduled for a bipolar prothesis as a repair since his fracture broke the femoral head. Several of my nurses moved him (with his hip splinted) from the bed to a gurney on a slide board and the OR supervisor insists that we violated a common standard of care that you never move a fractured hip. Our Nurse practitioners who cover these patients disagree and believe that the patients need to be moved to prevent numerous complications (i.e. dvt's, pneumonia). I understand that you would certainly stablilze a fracture by splinting but we move patients from bed to gurney to take to Xray, CAT scan and we turn them Q2 while in bed. Is there anyone that can tell me what you do, as this had gone to the Chief Nurse who wants me to look for references and standards to support our practice. Help! :uhoh21:

We turn them Q 2 after they come to the floor from recovery with an abductor pillow.