We only have one pulse oximeter for the facility, but we have flat-screen TVs!

[Plagueis]

I've been hearing stories from my fellow nurses about not having enough equipment (or it goes missing) at work, so they end up buying their own, such as personal pulse oximeters or wrist blood pressure machines. I would then ask if they made management aware of the missing or broken equipment, and they said that when they did, they were blamed for the missing or broken equipment, so the facility wasn't going to get new equipment, and that nurses would have to share what was left.

I even know a couple of nurses who bought their own thermometers for work because there was only one available for over 150 residents in the facility. Another even mentioned that her facility (she works LTC) recently spent over $600 on new phones for the facility and bought flat-screen TVs for the rehab sections, but then claimed they couldn't afford more Criticons. I guess I'm fortunate that I work at a place that actually has enough equipment to go around.

I just don't get it. Why should nurses have to buy their own pulse oximeters or thermometers to use at work? Is it really more important to have tricked-out phones and TVs than to have enough working equipment so that nurses can actually take vital signs?

[nurse2033, MSN, RN]

Nurses should not bring their own gear. This fills the gap, gets the job done, and management has to do nothing. The next time you have to call an MD at 0300 and report a fever but can't measure their temperature, maybe something will get done. I would report this to my manager, and move up the food chain every week until equipment was available, oh and probably look for a new job depending on the response from management.

[dandk1997RN, MSN, RN]

Patients and their families aren't impressed by thermometers or pulse oximeters. They see a flat screen tv and think the facility is all nice and up to date- after all, if they have money for new tvs, they must have decent medical equipment, or they just don't think about it at all. They think the flat screen will keep them occupied when they are in the hospital and they don't give the actual equipment we use to keep them healthy a second thought.

The facility where I am doing my clinicals is kinda' a nightmare this way. Most of the equipment for taking vital signs is broken, and when I am trying to grab VS on my patient, it can take me 30 minutes just to gather enough working equipment to get the job done...and this is a med/surg floor of a hospital.

[robby5313]

Perhaps calling a physician and saying, "Hello Dr. so-and-so, I am calling about Joe Smith who is a patient of Dr. so-and-so. He is complaining of left sided chest pain, pain from his chin, extending into his arm, he states there is "an elephant on my chest." I am sorry but I am unable to give you a blood pressure as I do not have a properly working blood pressure cuff currently......how long do you think it would take for the facility to fix that?

[robby5313]

"His 02 sats? Not sure of that either, as we do not have a functioning oximeter." "What would you like me to do?"

[GHGoonette, BSN, RN]

What kind of priority...

Ok, I suppose my own facility's not much better. The bosses employed a family member to design a new hospital, used questionable contractors to build the place and installed shoddy equipment. So I shouldn't be surprised to hear that flat screens are more important than life-saving monitoring devices in other hospitals.

Patients go for the pretty-the fountains in the foyer, the flowers at reception, the cable tv in the rooms. Oximeters, dynamaps, thermometers, these aren't pretty. Poor picture quality on the monitors, and the sound sucks. And roses in a vase beat thermometers in a glass any time.

It's all about the money; I used to think that establishing a health care facility implied some measure of commitment to the good of humanity, or at least the vestige of a desire to serve the community. Not any more, I threw my rose-colored specs away long ago.

Nurses buying essential equipment. Depressing.

[syckRN]

Healthcare has become a consumer driven industry. People will die because we try so hard to please them. Just another irony in the system.

[CathyLew]

I totally agree with you, but I see this type of talk at our hospital all the time, when the staff does not know the facts. Our staff **** and moan about the new furniture in the lobby, or expensive looking artwork in some of the waiting areas. Most of that stuff was either donated by local merchants, or the money was raised by our hospital auxiliary. In one case TV's were donated by a patient, who when they were in the hospital, saw how bad the TV's were, and knew that was something that was important to a patient....

And really when you think of it, the patients may not know how bad the medical equipment is we are using, because as professionals we would never complain about it in front of the patient.... (I can't get a decent blood pressure on you Mr. Smith, so I'll just give you the blood pressure medication the Dr ordered....) But they do notice things like bad TV's, lumpy mattresses, old crummy phones in the rooms. And when patient complaints come in, they are about the noise at night, cold food, pain meds being late, bad TV's etc... how many people write in a satisfaction survey that they had to wait too long for an O2 sat to be taken....

But that being said, we have started sending letters to our hospital auxiliary asking for equipment...so they alternate tacky flower arrangements for the lobby with thermometers for the floors!

[merlee]

I like the idea of asking the hospital auxillary to purchase pt equipment!

And if there isn't enough equipment to do your job, you will eventually be cited by your governing organization, JCAHO.

Imagine an email to your CEO - 'Unable to give any BP meds today because there were no BP machines'. Ouch.

[TDCHIM]

I'm one future paper-pusher who thinks it's a load of bull for facilities to have expensive furnishings and hotel-quality amenities but only a rag-tag assembly of outdated, unreliable, or broken medical equipment.

I felt physically ill the other day when my university's leadership went around bragging about our teaching hospital's new "spa-like bathrooms." That work wasn't paid for by local merchants or contractors! The university also just created a new upper-management position in charge of patient satisfaction, and hired someone with a background in both hospital and hotel customer satisfaction programs. They just jacked tuition 10% for undergrads and are forcing the faculty to take unpaid furloughs, but by God, we have enough money to pay for THAT type of crap!

I don't have a problem with genuine attempts to improve service, but turning hospitals into hotels is inappropriate and a waste of money that could be spent on far more worthy and vital needs.

[Sparrow23]

Our hospital is spending god-knows-how-much on a group that comes in and tries to increase pt satisfaction. Maybe they should have spent that money on bringing in some new staff so that we would actually have decent nurse-pt ratios and could actually oh, i don't know, care for our pts. What a brilliant concept. Or yeah, get us some working vitals machines. Or thermometers that do not tell me every single one of my pts has a temp of 99. Or linens. Or medications. But no, lets pay this group tons to hawk us and tell us that the reason pts hate the hospital so much is because clean linens are sitting on a chair. And lets get flat screens when not every pt room even has a phone. Or a working thermostat. Ugh, morons.

[AgentBeast, BSN, RN]

This is what happens when you have business majors making decisions that should be made by medical personnel.