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 AHOSPITAL, 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.
as far as snarky goes, this post had it in spades!
if the noise level at your father's bedside was keeping you from sleeping, why not just go home to sleep? of course you were exhausted . . . but it's really not about the visitors, is it? the vital signs. lab draws etc. were for your father's benefit, not yours.
if the noise level kept her from resting @ her dying father's side, it no doubt disrupted him. they deserved a peaceful experience.
too many hospital workers are only interested in their agenda. they waltz into a room and are only concerned about their duties.
highly doubt he needed lab draws/vs. just peace and quiet in that most difficult time.
OP, please send your management to our facility to deal with the staff who continually speak in another language regardless of the policy stating that english is to be spoken everywhere on the unit. Thank you.
I can genuinely see both sides of the issue. When you're working, its only normal to want to laugh with your coworkers occasionally, keep your sense of humor and foster a sense of camaraderie with those you are around on a daily basis. That's only natural. High stress moments can later lead to moments of levity as a natural way to de-stress.
However on the other side of the coin,
If you happen to be the one in the hospital bed - alone, anxious, in pain, sore, scared, sad, tired, hurt, sweaty ect. there is nothing like hearing the nurses at the nurses station cutting up, talking loud, giggling and laughing to make you feel even worse. It can make one feel as if nobody really cares and its just a reminder how lousy your situation really is and can contribute to a feeling of isolation.
My issie was the manner with which the upper management addressed this - it was as if they were talking to kindergardners and not the professionals we are "We Need to use our indoor voices".
I, myself have been a patient and most of the excessive noise i can remember came from other patients (confused, screamers, pain, etc) and the unit carts, phones, call bells, and visitors. The nursing staff was (for the most part) trying to maintain hushed tones both for the day and night shift.
We have the stop light thingy on our unit but its a joke for most staff -
My issue with this whole schpeel is how the nursing is ALWAYS blamed for any wrong or problems. I am getting fed up with management pointing fingers at the bedside staff for all the problems in life and expecting us to Smile and blah, blah, blah.
If management was serious about noise reduction they'd limit and restrict the visiting of patients - BUT that would mean going back on their promise of 24/7 visiting.
There is nothing worse than doing rounds at 2am to find Billie Joe and Billy Bob coming onto the unit with cheap malt alcohol, KFC, and smoking cigarettes....all the while disrupting the unit and making a scene.
Specializes in Occupational health, Corrections, PACU.
Excessive noise IS an issue - don't get me wrong.
My issie was the manner with which the upper management addressed this - it was as if they were talking to kindergardners and not the professionals we are "We Need to use our indoor voices".
I, myself have been a patient and most of the excessive noise i can remember came from other patients (confused, screamers, pain, etc) and the unit carts, phones, call bells, and visitors. The nursing staff was (for the most part) trying to maintain hushed tones both for the day and night shift.
We have the stop light thingy on our unit but its a joke for most staff -
My issue with this whole schpeel is how the nursing is ALWAYS blamed for any wrong or problems. I am getting fed up with management pointing fingers at the bedside staff for all the problems in life and expecting us to Smile and blah, blah, blah.
If management was serious about noise reduction they'd limit and restrict the visiting of patients - BUT that would mean going back on their promise of 24/7 visiting.
There is nothing worse than doing rounds at 2am to find Billie Joe and Billy Bob coming onto the unit with cheap malt alcohol, KFC, and smoking cigarettes....all the while disrupting the unit and making a scene.
I definitely understand that! And yes, management can be very, very condescending. And you are right, they do not always address you as professionals that you are. Been there, and witnessed that.
I work in telemetry, tele alarms are constantly going off, 1/4 the pt's are on bipap at night, not to mention tube feeds, q 4hour vitals, 0300 labs, and now we have glytec insulin gtt alarms, IV pumps. It's alarm overload. Sure, we turn down the lights, shut the doors, it doesn't matter, it's a noisy unit. We cluster care, but the if you are doing VS, chemstick, lab draw and EKG all at 0300, do you REALLY expect the pt to go back to sleep? But the chemstick and VS have to happen, and the docs want the lab draw is for a timed trop or ptt so it has to go then too...
Nurses work for Press Ganey- someone else just signs your paycheck, and that stinks. Nurses (and others in healthcare) are concierge workers now- and not why most of us went into nursing. The whole "customer" mindset bites rocks- and is a disservice to patients. If I'm so busy kissing $**, I'm not doing something actually helpful to the patients' wellbeing. I'm not in the hospitality industry (for a good reason- I'd s*ck at it !! ). And yet, that's what it's become...sadly.
The delivery was a crock.... but IMO, getting sleep is a huge factor in getting well.... how do you feel (even when you're well) if you go several nights with only a couple of hours of sleep? How do you feel if you're H & H is 7 & 28, and you get no sleep?
I've worked all shifts, and been a patient on regular floors, SCU, and in ICU...have some perspective on both sides of this (but I still hated upper management showing up with a lecture and some dumb delivery when they hadn't seen active nursing since amputations were done with the same saw as whacking the tree in the backyard.....)
As a patient a LOT, I can speak to the noise level. During shift change and the time afterwards when new staff was getting to work, it's louder- and understandable. There's a level of noise that is still professional. Nobody expects anyone to learn sign language or text each other all shift
The problem is at 3 am, when there are long loud rumbles of laughter that wake patients up (been there, heard that). That is disturbing. Being in a hospital is a study in sleep deprivation as it is. You never get uninterrupted sleep. Just when midnights are getting their stuff done, and you doze off, knowing that 4 a.m. vitals are coming, someone in the hall sounds like they've just watched a M*A*S*H marathon, and is trying to get a nurse in the next state to appreciate how funny she thought it was It gets OLD. When people say they need to go home to get well, there's an element of truth to that :) And yet, too sick to even walk out in the hall . Stuck.
If you want to make a patients' night (when medically feasible) wait until labs to do the 4 a.m. vitals. Especially the ones who have been there for a while, are on tele (so you have some clue that they're ok), and haven't had a decent night's sleep in weeks.... :) Get an order to postpone vs until a bit later if you can. Tell the patient to call when they wake up so you can do them then. Anything you can do that helps a patient get sleep will be greatly appreciated :)
I work in telemetry, tele alarms are constantly going off, 1/4 the pt's are on bipap at night, not to mention tube feeds, q 4hour vitals, 0300 labs, and now we have glytec insulin gtt alarms, IV pumps. It's alarm overload. Sure, we turn down the lights, shut the doors, it doesn't matter, it's a noisy unit. We cluster care, but the if you are doing VS, chemstick, lab draw and EKG all at 0300, do you REALLY expect the pt to go back to sleep? But the chemstick and VS have to happen, and the docs want the lab draw is for a timed trop or ptt so it has to go then too...
IME, it's not the monitor noise, or necessary procedures and care- it's the doors banging (no need for that), LOUD talking & laughing in the halls, etc..... the necessary care has to get done- of course. :) But there are other things that can be toned down. (but a manager from some office in another building probably isn't the best one to deliver the news !! :)
Maybe you should look into a different career path Abbaking. If you can't be bothered to be quiet-something that takes less energy than being loud-for your patients' benefit, you have no place in nursing. Sleep is essential to healing and feeling well. Kindly leave the profession if you think otherwise.
Maybe this goes deeper than your superiors scalding you, or maybe you've always had a problem with being told what to do. But they're management they are there to MANAGE you.
All of the call bells will now be on vibrate mode!!!:clown:
Where I work, management had the call bells rigged up. They ring, you answer them. Pt needs water, in 30 seconds it starts ringing back but more alarming than the first ring. Every single time the pt accidently hits the button, you have to physically walk in the room, move visitors and/or equipment to reach the small gray buttonn ever-so-hard to get to above the head of the bed
Needless to say, the call bell is RARELY silent. The only way is to run in the room, hit the cancel button, ask the pt what they need and then go get it. Otherwise, it will ring hysterically until you get back from the pyxis (flustered), hunt down a witness to get the demerol, waste it, draw it up, get your COW and do a drive by the room.
Accordingn to management 30 seconds is plenty of time to accomplish all this and the call bell should never be ringing back up.
Oh yeah, imagine this on a pediatric floor where kids just love to play with the remote
My point, sometimes their own stupid policies contradict others. I do agree that getting plenty of quality rest is very important in healing. Wish it was a litttle easier making it happen for our patients.
Managment has even instituted stop lights that record noise level and turn green, yellow or green to be able to tell our noise level. Hasn't worked yet unfortunately.
.thumb.jpg.0ecd35df0d9f1f1355ba04ef16f50db7.jpg){kind=small}
:clown:
Been there,done that, ASN, RN
7,241 Posts
if the noise level kept her from resting @ her dying father's side, it no doubt disrupted him. they deserved a peaceful experience.
too many hospital workers are only interested in their agenda. they waltz into a room and are only concerned about their duties.
highly doubt he needed lab draws/vs. just peace and quiet in that most difficult time.