Sitters

[applesxoranges]

If a patient is suicidal or ETOH, isn't it normal to have a sitter with them? I kind of thought that was a standard of care. At my old job, they would have a sitter for 3 rooms whose job would be to sit there and watch the person except Joint Commission told them they had to have 1:1 and not 1:3 but I don't know if that was a change that was implemented.

At my new job, they just stick them in a room across from the nursing station which is kind of dangerous in my opinion. If they stick them in a seclusion room, they will have a 1:1 but until then they let the suicidals, psych evals, and the etoh patients hang out in a room with potentially no one watching them since the nurses have a 5:1 patient to nurse ratio.

[livingthedream77]

Kalipso, truer words were never spoken!

[applesxoranges, BSN, RN]

One thing I do notice is that the restraint usage is a lot higher in this hospital and we do have more people try to leave than at the other hospital which was deemed the area's "psych" hospital. I really wonder if a sitter made the difference.

[Matt8700, RN, EMT-B]

At my hospital these patients all have sitters. Sometimes we will have one sitter watching two rooms, but that's only if the rooms are right next to each other. I don't see how they can expect the nursing staff to continuously monitor what is going in that room....there is already enough to do!

[MassED, BSN, RN]

We rarely have sitters available overnight in our ED.

We use posey belts and frequent rounding... and keep the doors open so that they can be seen at all times.

we have security for our sign on psych evals, only if SI/HI. For ETOH, we put bed alarms on, or posey's if they're out of control and need to stay in bed. Rarely sitters, as we don't even have enough staff to absorb one nursing call out.

[applesxoranges, BSN, RN]

we have security for our sign on psych evals, only if SI/HI. For ETOH, we put bed alarms on, or posey's if they're out of control and need to stay in bed. Rarely sitters, as we don't even have enough staff to absorb one nursing call out.

Bed alarms would be nice. How do your drunk patients not figure out how to take off the poseys? Maybe we have some super high functioning alcoholics in our area.