What CAN they do? (a vent)

karamarie91 · Apr 26, 2012

Yea, at my job, only a few of the dietary staff helps set the patient's tray up. They usually just put the tray in there and leave. One of the houskeeping staff actually offered to help me pull up a patient. A radiology tech helped me clean up a patient since she was in the room to pick the patient up for a procedure.

Teamwork is a beautiful thing. I don't demand that non-nurses and tech help us out. But I it is a pleasant shock when they do.

Nurse Leigh · Apr 26, 2012

So true. There are a few RTs who are very willing to help boost our pts, especially those who used to work as techs. Yes, teamwork helps everyone.

Scarlette Wings · Apr 26, 2012

Three cheers for Nurse Leigh. Hip hip hooray! I am sooooo with you on this one!

martymoose, BSN, RN · Apr 26, 2012

Yeah, but I like how we are the only ones who get reemed when satisfaction scores are low. As if we are the only ones providing anything for patients

anotherone, BSN, RN · Apr 27, 2012

my hospital has been requiring the lovely hourly rounding protocol for a few years now. i remember back when it was first introduced that mgmt tried to make it sound like a team effort, that any staff members would be involved to the extent of their scope of practice. umm, i am beginning to think no one but nurses and patient care techs have any actual scope.

in a lot of ways, i understand this. we nurses and our techs are of course more familiar with our pts and what is appropriate for them. however, it can get frustrating when we are in report and techs are busy with vitals and baths etc and dietary takes in a tray and barely sets it up so the pt can reach it. instead, they come out to get one of us to do this. for some pts, i understand the rationale behind dietary not being allowed to adjust bed settings, but it seems they could help at least a little. (perhaps with the a/o pt who just have trouble shifting around to reach their bed controls) also, the other day during report, a nurse had to go into a pt's room to adjust the thermostat because the pt was uncomfortable and apparently nurses and techs are the only ones allowed to do this, though housekeeping had been in the room.

yes there probably are reasons for it all being this way, but i cannot help but get a little cranky when mgmt acts like "we are all in this together" only to realize they mean, it is up to you floor nurses and the few techs you have to make it work.

ok, vent over. thanks for reading!

yes, all in this together is bs and means "nursing is responsible to ensure it is done"" i hate the facade of pretneding we are stupid and will believe it more than anything. call it what it is . do not say we are instituting this and everyone will be invovled.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Apr 27, 2012

In my experience, in the hospital everything is the nurse's responsibility and the nurse's fault. Cafeteria never delivered the breakfast tray so the child didn't eat until 10:30 am, medication was given 2 hours late because that's when it was finally delivered despite multiple phone calls to pharmacy, discharge was delayed because discharge orders weren't done, admission was delayed because housekeeping didn't come to clean the room for over an hour... in the end it all comes back to the nurse.

Also, I don't know how much of it is what CAN other disciplines do but, rather, what WILL they do. There's no reason why PT, OT, RT, SW, MDs, etc can't get a patient a blanket or get them a bucket if they're about to vomit but I'm willing to bet that if a patient said to any one of them, "I need a bucket, I'm going to puke", the response would be "I'll get your nurse" 9 times out of 10.

NayRN · Apr 27, 2012

On the same note, the other issue I find frustrating is what can the family do. No, I don't expect the family to take care of my patients for me, but when there are 2 or 3 family members in the room, and they insist on having a sitter in the room or having a tech in there to feed poor old mom so that she can get better so they can take her HOME with them, despite our best efforts to teach them basic care, med administration, turning, etc., you've just got to wonder how long it'll be before mom is back in the hospital with an aspiration or a pressure ulcer.

I am lucky to have pretty good staff at my hospital. Techs, RT, housekeepers, etc. Yesterday, the house sup came and asked me to help her pull up a patient in bed.

RainMom · Apr 27, 2012

Working nights, the only other discipline I regularly see is the lab techs who are great about helping out. At the very least, they will relay if a pt has a request (more pain meds) but often help clean up if they walk in on someone who has pulled an IV, vomited, etc.

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Apr 27, 2012

I used to work somewhere that had a housekeeper who would in EVERY SINGLE ROOM ask each patient "do you need to go to the bathroom?" and then when the patient almost inevitably said "yes", she'd run out to get one of us (nurse or aide). She had to be told to STOP ASKING, since so many of these patients figured "what the heck, as long as she's offering". Not realizing, of course, that SHE wasn't going to stop right there and help them up (because, of course, they had no ability to get there on their own and it was a ten-minute ordeal). No, by the time she'd tracked down every nurse and every aide--remember, she asked EVERY PATIENT as she went room by room emptying the trash--everyone was annoyed that they had been kept waiting.

Kinda wanted to kill her myself, but this time management stepped in and shut her up :)

Vespertinas · Apr 27, 2012

The differences seem to be less between individuals and more a product of the culture of each department.

I've seen extremes in expectations for departments like transportation, dietary, and respiratory. I started describing them but my post got too long. My point is that I think the managers of those departments seem to promote or ignore aspects of their team's care delivery and that pretty much dictates how it all goes.

nguyency77, CNA · Apr 27, 2012

Yeah, but I like how we are the only ones who get reemed when satisfaction scores are low. As if we are the only ones providing anything for patients

I love when patients' families yell at me and the nurse because dietary can't seem to remember that patient so-and-so hates fish/beef/etc. I'm like sitting there thinking, You folks called us in here, saying it was an emergency... only to tell us that your mother hates carrots? :banghead:

Our dietary department just leaves the trays in those warmers in hallways for us CNA to pass out. All 74 of them plus handing out the correct beverage, positioning patients in bed, etc. while being expected by management to toilet everyone on time and respond to call lights in a "timely manner." And it's only two CNA's passing trays, too.