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.
We have to agree to disagree. If you have something important that needs said- no one has ever said you couldn't shout out for help when your patient is slipping down the tubes or even slipping down the stairs, but to sit at the desk outside of an 80y/o womans room and talk in a normal conversational voice about what your husband(wife) did/didn't do , what the current crop of docs is doing that gets your goat, that rash on your whatever that keeps oozing..... Your patient is paying $2000., $3000., or more per night for this fine hotel, and you cannot even be as courteous as you expect your family, visitors, trash guy, mail person..... to be to you when you go home in the morning and want to get a little sleep. The rub is YOU AREN"T SICK. Would you put up with the next door neighbor shouting outside your sick 5 year old window at 3 in the morning- No you would call the cops. Unfortunately the 80y/o little old lady isn't going to get much attention from the cops if she makes the same complaint but about the noise outside her hospital room. We are supposed to educated in the healing arts, but it is always amazing to me how selfish some staff members are. When they are at work they expect to have a good time and the needs of those whining patients aren't going to stop them from treating every night like it is a RAVE. The attitude seems to be " if they don't like the noise they can go some place else for thier care" , and that is just what a lot of people are doing. If your hospital loses 10% of it's patients because some loud-mouthed nurses (and others) wouldn't let people sleep- are you willing to take a 10% pay cut to make up for the lost revenue? Maybe a 10% staff cut and there would be less people making noise to disturb my patients!!!
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
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".
Exactly! The kindergarten level acronyms are just a source of humor to me now!! My son works at a big box office supply store (before that a grocery store). For years we've been laughing about the silly acronyms they seem to have for everything these days. (Which is defeating the original purpose) I just figured they were geared to a lower common level of education in that work force .. I guess not anymore!
One of the funniest was "BOB". It was code for "bottom of basket" in the grocery checkout line. The cashier was supposed to say "have you seen Bob?" to alert the bagger to the possible large bag of dog food or case of soda . . but after that they had to wing it with the conversation about what item might be there. "I think he went home to feed his dog" for dog food. That type of stuff. Really. If I was the only customer in there and these people started talking about somebody named "Bob" well I might not go back because the employees seemed to be nuts.
As a patient and as the family member of a declining patient what I found most annoying were the intercom voices from the unit clerk: crackle static static CINDY?? Is CINDY in THERE?? That always made me jump out of my skin. I do know at times the conversation gets louder than you realize, though. Not advocating for noisy units at all.
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.
They weren't scalding him (pretty sure OSHA wouldn't approve) and I think this response is way over the top harsh.
Glad you're back in the thick of it though abbaking!! :)
Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.
patients c/o being aroused in the middle of the night.
I know, I know, I took it out of context, but I simply could not help myself.
We are currently implementing a "noise survey" to patients because of noise complaints. I work nights, and yes, I have found myself getting loud sometimes, especially when working with certain people.
However, when anyone gets to the bottom of noise issues, it is usually because the roommate was needing to have turning/incontinence care, or was confused, or basically more sick than the complaining roommate. I hate giving a bath to a patient in the middle of the night if the roommate is with it, but if we don't give baths to our complete cares overnight, we are chastised for it. I will try to sneak in a bed bath during the last round of incontinence care.
After working nights for so long (it's coming up on five years!) I have become an elf or something. I can sneak in, look over a person, empty urinals, change IV bags, even grab a pulse ox, etc., without disturbing a sleeping patient. I HATE waking people up, but we gotta do what we gotta do when it comes to that.
What ticks me off about my floor is that we have "improved" our call bell system so that they ring ridiculously loud. Trust me, we can hear them. Making them louder does not make us answer them faster. I'm not getting to that call bell because I am busy! People who ignored call bells before continue to ignore them now, anyway.
I think it is important to accomidate as much rest as possible for patients. This is why I wish my healthcare system made implementing visiting policies easier. Visiting hours are supposed to be from 1000 - 2030, with no visiting between 1400 - 1600 (or something like that), and no more than 2 visitors per patient, 15 minute or less visits suggested.
This isn't a problem I have so much overnight but during the first few hours of my 7p-7a shifts. When 2030 comes around, I am still passing meds and doing assessments, so I can't police the visitors. Besides, if I "kick out" visitors, I am the mean nurse because "the nurse last night let her stay until 1130 PM!"
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
I thought B.O.B. was battery operated boyfriend
For those you need to hit Wally World or your closest True Value Hardware store. They have to keep them locked up with the compressed air computer cleaners and the spray paint. The important thing is to speak slowly, loudly enunciatitng each syllable. I • N E E D • A • B A T- T E R -Y • O P- E R- A T- E D • B O Y- F R I E N D • P L E A S E ! !
Works best when said in front of a crowd of middle-schoolers coming in to buy their Skittles and Orbit Gum for the walk home.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
wow- that is a set up for complaints.... how does mgmt figure you're supposed to keep hipaa standards? :)
the vast majority of hospitals still standing in the united states were erected before the advent of hipaa -- sometimes more than a century before. three and four patients to a room is a real improvement of 16 patients in a ward, or even as many as 60! (a ward is a humungous room with nothing but curtains between the beds, shared bathrooms and no privacy.) assuming that yours is an honest question, management expects you to do the best that you can. so don't stand at the foot of bed a's bed and discuss bed b's poor prognosis or loose stools, don't discuss bed a's biopsy results in your outdoor voices even if you're sure bed c is at pt and bed d is asleep. you just do your best. sometimes -- often -- patients overhear things they shouldn't, but it usually cannot be helped.
the vast majority of hospitals still standing in the united states were erected before the advent of hipaa -- sometimes more than a century before. three and four patients to a room is a real improvement of 16 patients in a ward, or even as many as 60! (a ward is a humungous room with nothing but curtains between the beds, shared bathrooms and no privacy.) assuming that yours is an honest question, management expects you to do the best that you can. so don't stand at the foot of bed a's bed and discuss bed b's poor prognosis or loose stools, don't discuss bed a's biopsy results in your outdoor voices even if you're sure bed c is at pt and bed d is asleep. you just do your best. sometimes -- often -- patients overhear things they shouldn't, but it usually cannot be helped.
we have 4-6 patients to a bay on our ward and we do hand over at the foot of each bed. its crazy.
the vast majority of hospitals still standing in the united states were erected before the advent of hipaa -- sometimes more than a century before. three and four patients to a room is a real improvement of 16 patients in a ward, or even as many as 60! (a ward is a humungous room with nothing but curtains between the beds, shared bathrooms and no privacy.) assuming that yours is an honest question, management expects you to do the best that you can. so don't stand at the foot of bed a's bed and discuss bed b's poor prognosis or loose stools, don't discuss bed a's biopsy results in your outdoor voices even if you're sure bed c is at pt and bed d is asleep. you just do your best. sometimes -- often -- patients overhear things they shouldn't, but it usually cannot be helped.
yes, i've heard of wards :) many hospitals have also been working at making improvements to comply with hipaa. :) i'm not that much younger than you
xtxrn, ASN, RN
4,267 Posts
Very well said