Relationship-Based Care in the ED?

Hmm...this smells of upper management getting a whiff of nursing theory and trickling it down. I can see this kind of nursing on the floor by applying primary care nursing,etc. But I'm having a hard time picturing it in the ER. How exactly are they defining it ?

http://www.chcm.com/services/RBC/rbc.asp

Here is a website about it. There is also a book. Relationship-Based Care A model for transforming practice. By Mary Koloroutis

Hmm...a cursory glance at the website says it improves patient satisfaction and physician satisfaction but said nothing of nursing satisfaction. Will have to go read more.

Hmmm,

That link didn't explain a single thing about how it's going to be set up. My ED has gone through some God-awful changes this past 9 months. It was enacted by a group called "Empath".

The ED was broken up into "pods" or "zones". Each zone had an assigned MD, a "team Leader", and other Rn's. Also a "tech" and "secretary". If they had staffed it as they were supposed to, it would have worked. It was usually always understaffed.

We lost all of our Md's over this and currently have travel docs. We have lost 1/4 of our nursing staff as well. Things are ugly and moral is low.

But all of this was to "reduce pt wait times and increase their satisfaction."

If it ain't broke - don't fix it...

this is hardly a new approach. Ida Jean Orlando posited this theory years ago . Basically it comes down to dynamic interaction between patient and nurse with nurse constantly re-evaluating.

Here is a proposed new nursing theory that is SURE to improve nursing and patient satisfaction, while probably simulataneously reducing the outrageous bonus and salary opportunities among the heel clackers and the suit mongers in the hospital. I would like to call it "The Grounded Theory of Adequate Staffing."

Nursing and nursing support staff are adequately trained and educated and staffing is based on a grid (administrators love a grid, so I thought I would throw it in.) The grid highlights the # of patients per nurse and is based not only on tasks that must be completed, but actually allows for time for assessment and re-evaluation, providing comfort measures and extends the time even more to actually allow the nursing staff to "look ahead" and plan for any foreseeable problems."

I will finish my theory after I've had some more coffee. Anyone care to contribute ?