Sitters: A Thing of the Past?

[PediLove2147]

I found out today that my hospital will no longer be providing sitters for patients unless they are suicidal. We have quite a few neurology patients (i.e mental status changes in little ladies that don't speak English) and having a sitter is sometimes the only thing we can do to prevent them from jumping out of bed. They said we will now be relying on chemical restraints. I don't like the idea of just knocking my patients out because the hospital doesn't feel like paying for a sitter. It's funny too because not too long ago they started a program that trains sitters exclusively.

Any other hospitals going in this direction? Some nurses on my floor heard we weren't the only ones..

[applewhitern, BSN, RN]

I haven't seen "sitters" used around here since the 1980's. All of the facilities I have worked at require the family to either pay for a sitter themselves, or to come in and sit with the patient themselves. I haven't seen any type of physical restraint used in years, either. Where I work now, we use bed alarms and they work well.

[gummi bear]

We call it "continous protective observation" at my hospital. And on average, we have at least 1-2 patients that require a "sitter" per shift. One of the CNAs from the unit or another floor does the "sitting".

[VICEDRN, BSN, RN]

we were told by TJC that sitters is a priority after an...unfortunate incident that left an AMS patient dead last summer.

Of course, this just means they pull all of the techs from everywhere in the hospital first before they find a sitter and they keep sitter patients in a room together so it cuts down on how many sitters they need. Of course, the sitter pool is never called in.

[prinsessa]

We don't use sitters or restraints on my floor. The really confused patients get put in rooms close to the nurse's station and have a bed alarm. Sometimes we have to "take turns" watching a particularly confused patient. This takes away from the care of other patients. Sometimes almost half our unit will have bed alarms. Never a dull moment

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

i found out today that my hospital will no longer be providing sitters for patients unless they are suicidal. we have quite a few neurology patients (i.e mental status changes in little ladies that don't speak english) and having a sitter is sometimes the only thing we can do to prevent them from jumping out of bed. they said we will now be relying on chemical restraints. i don't like the idea of just knocking my patients out because the hospital doesn't feel like paying for a sitter. it's funny too because not too long ago they started a program that trains sitters exclusively.

any other hospitals going in this direction? some nurses on my floor heard we weren't the only ones..

perhaps the key words are "providing a sitter." if sitters come out of the unit budget as ours do, perhaps the hospital has decided to make the patient responsible for the charge instead. and of course, the family is always free to stay with the patient to prevent them from jumping out of bed. in this time of encouraging 24/7 visiting in the name of "customer service", perhaps they're expecting the family to actually do something rather than sit around and suck up nursing time.