Shhhh! ---It's all a crock!

[abbaking]

The upper management staff came unit to unit explaining to us (wispering mind you) of the need to speak quietly and not to raise the voice - EVER.

Some crap about CMS, hospital scores, medicare reimbursment and $$$ - I tuned them all out because in my honest opinion - YOU ARE IN A HOSPITAL, NOT A MONASTERY.

If you want peace and quiet, then go home - I will gladly show you the way out.

Its a new motto - SHHHH (Silence Helps Healing Happen Here).

When will the powers that be realize that I am there to work and keep patients from dying and treat them. I am not there to make them feel like they are at the Ritz-Carlton.

Imagine a code - Wispering the code call, silently doing compressions.

[heartflutter, ADN, BSN]

Ever seems a bit silly. I can understand the need for maintaining quiet when as convenient as possible, though. If someone's in the hospital, they need all the rest they can get and a quiet environment contributes to that.

But whispering a code? Seems there might have been a miscommunication there.

[wee_oneRN]

It is very important to keep the floor as quiet and calm as possible. Imagine how you feel when you are sick at home and people won't leave you alone. Stress from extra light and noise do prolong healing time and increase risk for complications. For nicu babies, they can pop a lung from noise stress or get a fabulous brain bleed. I doubt anyone expects you to whisper during a code, but yelling down the hallway rarely brings them back to life either.

[gettingbsn2msn, MSN, RN]

I am truly getting sick of working in hospitals. I care dearly about the patients. They are not the problem. I enjoy the camradarie with other nurses. I like learning. I cannot stand Press Ganey. I do not know what it is that makes me so crazy. I did an agency assignment to a hospital this past week. Everywhere there were press ganey signs. Many like the above poster said. Some were "smile". Some were "be nice". They also had scripts that we were supposed to say. I have about had it with all this crap. I consider myself a nice person but I am old enough to not need someone to tell me how to be nice!

[netglow, ASN, RN]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FPdNpslw-w

[canesdukegirl, BSN, RN]

Yep. Quiet certainly helps to heal. I suppose you are going to have to learn sign language now to communicate with your HOH pts. Since administration is so hell bent on this new method of healing, I am confident that sign language classes have already been scheduled and budgeted for.

[4_Sq]

All of the call bells will now be on vibrate mode!!!:clown:

[JRP1120, RN]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FPdNpslw-w

LMBO!!!

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

Awhile back, in another life, I was asked by patients and families to do something about the noise coming from other patients' rooms. Visitors can raise the roof at times.

I think the quiet signs can help remind visitors as well as us to maintain the peace that can help a person heal.

Keeping quiet during an emergency isn't what most people would expect even if quiet is promoted otherwise.

Have you seen the stop lights some places use to remind about quiet? They detect levels of noise and light up as yellow and red levels are reached. Lately, I've never seen one operational. They were irritating, so staff disabled them in more than one place in which I've seen them! Sometimes management just doesn't think about implications of things they want to implement...

[katkonk, BSN, RN]

Wow, I am surprised by all the snarky comments. Of course they do not expect you to whisper in a code, that is just being ridiculous. I know there is a lot to put up with from management, but that is in any setting, in any business. Have you BEEN a patient on a floor? I have, and the many times I sat by my father's side before he passed away, I was appalled by the noise level. Every time I was just drifting off, someone would be talking to someone else down the hall (late at night), open a door, then it would be time for vital signs, then it was phones ringing. I was exhausted, not feeling great, but unable to sleep because of the noise. I agree with the above poster, quality rest helps patients heal. If you weren't so defensive, and didn't jump off that cliff taking their instructions to extremes, you might see they have a point. If you hate your job, then go to something else. Geeez... we are there for the patients, the patients are not there for us. They pay our salary, and the bottom line IS the bottom line. It is like service anywhere else, they can choose which doctors to go to, and they have choices as to what hospital they can go to. Hospitals are competing with one another, and like it or not, we are in a service industry. So, like it or not, "customer service" scores are here to stay. Why is it so very irritating to be asked to be respectful of their needs for reduced noise, anyway?

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

If the admin is looking for reduced noise levels they need to lower sound levels through the building in addition to speaking to nurses. So, private rooms with doors that can be closed, reinforced walls, personal intercoms instead of having to yell, phones and alarms turned down with visible cues instead, carts that can be moved about the unit without a clackety-clack-thunk. Oh, and especially, a partitioned room so staff can discuss patient care away from the nurses' desk (where all can hear).

[netglow, ASN, RN]

I think the frustration has to do with the "dumbing down" of information delivery to nursing staff. Admin feels the need to have to make it ridiculous in order for it to be understood. You can actually imagine them trying to figure out how to "make it so the nurses can understand it"... LOL. You pretty much need to drop some $ and design your units/equipment to be noise concious to the extent of making any difference really, unless people are actually shouting at each other from down the halls and stuff.