KAN152

If the patient is decision all the dr should have delt with her directly.

I am an LNA (RN student as well) at a long term care facility where we have over 90 dementia patients. Even with 14 LNAs staffed 7-3, 11 staffed 3-11 and 8 staffed 11-7 it is amazing how hard it is to react to residents and their alarms. Just this week we caught a resident trying to escape into the stair well. And many of these alarms are luckily false alarms (the resident rolls over too quick in bed or leans too far forward in their chair). The problem is also that most falls occur with the dementia patients who are still physically capable and they remove their TABS themselves, so they remove the alarm and then later fall and we don't know because the alarm doesn't go off! I agree with the post from "imintrouble" if you are in the middle of dispensing meds and an alarm goes off you are better off to stay and continue passing the meds or whatever you need to do. There are other nursing on the floor who are closer to the patient or more able to get to them. A medical error, medicinal error, etc on your part is much more serious to your career and that patients safety than if you are not the first RN to respond. What if your patient chokes on the meds while you are away? Or you are in a hurry and forget or mix up meds? And lastly, I agree your facility should staff more LNAs (: