Vanderbilt Medical Center to have nurses cleaning up

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Specializes in ICU, step down, dialysis.

"Cleaning the room after the case, including pulling your trash and mopping the floor, are all infection-prevention strategies. And it's all nursing, and it's all surgical tech. You may not believe that, but even Florence Nightingale knew that was true," said a hospital administrator to staff in a video obtained by the Channel 4 I-Team."

http://www.wsmv.com/story/23364976/vanderbilt-medical-center-to-have-nurses-cleaning-up

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.

Outrageous. I'm so glad the local media publicized this.

And for once, I am encouraged by the comments section that follows the article.

Note to Vandy nurses: note the comment from the DOH -- that it does not regulate hospital cleaning except to ensure that staff have been properly trained. (hint, hint) You might also mosey on over to the nearest OSHA MSDS and *ensure* that you know everything about various cleaning solutions (hint, hint).

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Specializes in CICU.

I got it! They could save EVEN more money by having the housekeeping staff take on nursing duties...

Housekeeping is important to patient care, and I am thankful for the excellent staff I work with. They take great care of us and the patients.

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Specializes in Medical Surgical.

This makes me sad. All these nurses that hardly even have time to process what is going on with each of their patients because of the amount of work they have to do will now have to take on another position. I would be looking for another job ASAP if I worked there.

I also read in the comments that the techs do all the work and nurses are overpaid to do nothing. I will admit that I have seen several nurses sitting around texting, the majority are running around crazy trying to pass meds, assess, and follow nursing orders.

That is CRAZY.. I hope that policy doesn't last for long.

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.
I also read in the comments that the techs do all the work and nurses are overpaid to do nothing.

Only two of the 26 comments present as of right now reflect this view, and they are both from the same commenter. ;)

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Home Health.

Aren't housekeepers generally cheaper than nurses?

When I worked in assisted living, The Powers That Be decided that nurses could act as dining room servers. When servers left, they weren't replaced. It didn't work out.

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Specializes in Medical Surgical.
Only two of the 26 comments present as of right now reflect this view, and they are both from the same commenter. ;)

Aha I did not see that the two comments had the same name! I also saw that someone said the commenter was an NA with some beef which is probably true.

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Shameful, did the doctors get the same email? Sad situation.

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Specializes in Med/Surg & Hospice & Dialysis.

The Florence Nightingale comment crawls all over me! Yes in her day housekeeping was a nursing duty. I am fairly certain she was not titrating drips, medicating people with 10+ meds at a time and of course monitoring for interactions. How many wound vac changes did she do?

Current nursing profession can not equivocally be compared to Florence's time.

The bed turn over rate at VUMC is slow at best. There have been patients waiting up to a week to transfer over there.

I have no problem emptying a trash can. I'm not sure I could do a complete room turn over/clean and still adequately care for 5-7 other patients.

We are doing this really super thing where transporter are not allowed to take a patient to a procedure/test, but can return them?!?!

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Specializes in Med Surg, ICU, Infection, Home Health, and LTC.

I am past words on this...There is no sane reason to move 100 years back in time!.. and when the infection rates shoot through the ceiling nurses will get blamed for not using PPE and proper hand washing to boot. Who gets a bachelors degree and masters to do house keeping?

http://www.wsmv.com/story/23364976/vanderbilt-medical-center-to-have-nurses-cleaning-up

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Specializes in M/S, ICU, ICP.

OMG. That is insane!

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I bet they don't decrease the staffing ratios either.

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses.com

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