that you have heard of a hospital requiring nurses to do?
I was in a meeting with a group of nurses yesterday - most of us with more than 25 years as RNs - and was hearing about the lovely new practice of "scripting". What is that? It means giving you - a professional nurse with all of your experience and skills and knowledge - a cute little "customer relations script" that you are supposed to say to patients when in various patient interaction situations.
For example: before leaving the room at one hospital, you are supposed to say " Is there anything else you need? I have the time." (whether you have time or not)
I understand basic sense about being pleasant to patients. I understand courtesy. I even know that a few nurses can use a little work in these areas. but the indignity of giving a professional RN a script to use when we talk to our patients? All because some consultant has told them it will improve the patient satisfaction scores. Cartain of our chains seem to be stars at this sort of thing - part of the corporate mind set I guess.
Anyway, I wanted hear how wide spread is this and what other stupid ways of degrading our practice are you seeing out there?
Just a little thought, and I know I am cluless about US healthcare so feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Aren't your doctors self employed, and provide a service to the hospital. THerefore is it not good customer service for these contracted personel to use a similar system
Nurse bleeps doc, "doc I need this for my patient"
Doc: "Of course, and is there anything else I can do for you, I have the time"
:D
Ok Ok I know, it doesn't work like that but there's no harm in using a little imagination every now and then.
What a rediculous policy, after you've told the patient you have the time how does it look when you have to rush away to deal with a sicker patient.
Oh and please hide this from UK healthcare bosses there's no point in giving them any ideas now is there.
This thread has obviously sparked some ire in me, LOL, as I'm now returning for the THIRD time to speak my mind!
Nursing is one of the top "most trusted" professions. It might even be THE top one, I don't remember the latest ratings. How trusted do you suppose we'd become if we started spouting canned phrases that they know are said to every patient in every situation? The patient knows pretty quickly he's being "handled" with a kiss-off phrase rather than treated as an individual.
My patients hear normal, down-to-earth conversation from me, and if I'm asking if they need something, it's because I WANT to ask and I WANT to know the answer. If I were the patient, I don't think I'd be very happy with my nurse robotically repeating phrases that it's clear she doesn't care to say.
Well said!!! As a volunteer at two different hospitals, I've seen how busy the nurses are and how many responsibilities they have, so if I was ever a patient and had a nurse ask me, "Is there anything else I can do for you? I have the time!" I would probably try to make her laugh with some witty, sarcastic response, such as, "Oh, I know you have the time. I bet I'm your only patient, and when you're not in my room, you're at the nurse's station eating bonbons and watching Days of OUr Lives! ........so would you mind fluffing my pillow and getting me a warm blanket, and maybe a Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks?" Hahaha.............
This is really bad but I must confess that when the suit people would come around, I would whip out my laminated card of appropriate responses to patients and READ it off...to top it off, I would pretend not to be able to pronounce a word or two and ask for help from the suit people....
(Not my finest moment but I got so fed up with it)...and it always got a laugh.
Specializes in Nursing Home ,Dementia Care,Neurology..
Just a little thought, and I know I am cluless about US healthcare so feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Aren't your doctors self employed, and provide a service to the hospital. THerefore is it not good customer service for these contracted personel to use a similar system
Nurse bleeps doc, "doc I need this for my patient"
Doc: "Of course, and is there anything else I can do for you, I have the time"
:D
Ok Ok I know, it doesn't work like that but there's no harm in using a little imagination every now and then.
What a rediculous policy, after you've told the patient you have the time how does it look when you have to rush away to deal with a sicker patient.
Oh and please hide this from UK healthcare bosses there's no point in giving them any ideas now is there.
Oh please!!!We don't want anymore hare-brained ideas!! If I went round uttering that phrase I'd be the one with Dementia very shortly.:chuckle
This is really bad but I must confess that when the suit people would come around, I would whip out my laminated card of appropriate responses to patients and READ it off...to top it off, I would pretend not to be able to pronounce a word or two and ask for help from the suit people....
(Not my finest moment but I got so fed up with it)...and it always got a laugh.
LOL! I'm just enough of a PITA that I can see myself asking, "Ok, now HOW do I emphasize this? I HAVE the time....*I* have the time....I have the TIME....?" After all, if administration doesn't tell me what to say and how to say it, I might just say something like "I hove the teem!"
Specializes in med-surg,pedi,ortho,one-day,rehab,ER.
omg !
i just had this meeting yesterday at my employer. yup, had to come in on a pleasant summer afternoon for an hour, watch a suit make three attempts to start a pre-taped video, endure audio out of sync w/ the video, and then be told there will be eight more topics to be covered in the coming months.
the staff in the lounge afterwards (20+ years service nurses) are so insulted.
our point, we were raised w/ the character we need by our parents and probably had all the instruction we needed before age seven or twelve. one said, "if you don't already have this, i'm not sure you can teach this."
but i get weekly e-mails from the top suit re: pt satisfaction scores. (i would block those e-mails if i could figure out how to do so w/ our new program.)
i agree: if you trust me to give safe, complete care to whomever chooses our institution--putting their lives in my hands--don't you think i know how to give outstanding customer service as part of that care?
er is a tense, sometimes fast-paced, intimidating setting for many pts and their families. i am always striving to set pts at ease, reassure families of the best care our "team" can offer, and facilitate their return home, transfer for further treatment, or admission to our own facility.
i've been verbally thanked, enthusiastically hugged, kissed (by someone recently released after incarceration--a very hyper little person--thankfully did not land anywhere above my neck:eek:). other times, the appreciation may not be spoken, but i know it's there. i don't sweat dissatisfied customer's report to a survey questionnaire.
i do my job to the best of my ability--always have, always will--and when i hit a point where i no longer would--i'll change occupation.
I don't understand the methodology behind this.If all the nurses go round saying this it must be like the 'Stepford wives ' in scrubs.to me it would just sound so false if I were a patient and every nurse said that to me.
The song and the dance my old hosp gave me was this:
"Hospitals are big scary places for pts, so it's good for the pts that you all say the same things as they go from unit to unit, b/c it gives them a sense of familiarity when they hear the same things over and over and they feel more at ease. As long as they haven't seen any robot murder movies."**
**Not an exact quote, paraphrased, w/ the BS removed.
Just a little thought, and I know I am cluless about US healthcare so feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Aren't your doctors self employed, and provide a service to the hospital. THerefore is it not good customer service for these contracted personel to use a similar system
Actually, many doctors work for the hospital or hospital system as salaried employees. Hospitalists and intensivists all work for the hospital and work shifts. Also, many clinic doctors work for hospital owned clinics. These can be community non-profit, for-profit, or religious non-profit owned hospitals. But, just because a hospital is 'non-profit' doesn't mean that they don't mandate these types of corporate directed stupidities that are based on customer satisfaction surveys.
Along the same lines as the scripting, at one of my jobs, all the nurses had to sit through a mandatory two hour "customer service" seminar ran by a consultant who said "Nurses these days don't take the time to pull up a chair and sit at the patient's bedside and just listen..." Then she opened the floor to discussion where the non-nurses who were forced to also attend this seminar (environmental services, CNAs and tech support) decided to tell every "horrible nurse" story they had in their orificenal. Including the "my sister-in-law's cousin's friend once had surgery and the nurse....blah blah blah..."
I gave my notice shortly thereafter and found a job at a union shop. They successfully fought the scripting before I started there and was more than happy to forgo a signon bonus to be a part of this team.
Blee (counting the days until her back is healed from surgery and can go back)
No brainless scripting where I work, but one place I work did request us to never let patients know we were "busy"! If they asked "Are you busy today?" we were supposed to lie b/c if we were perceived as busy (in management's twisted thinking) then patients would think they couldn't bother us!! It's OBVIOUS when we're busy- oh we weren't EVER supposed to mention being short staffed either! I think all this crap started when we started calling patients "clients"! Seems like if we have clients now we should be making MUCH higher wages!! :chuckle
No brainless scripting where I work, but one place I work did request us to never let patients know we were "busy"! If they asked "Are you busy today?" we were supposed to lie b/c if we were perceived as busy (in management's twisted thinking) then patients would think they couldn't bother us!! It's OBVIOUS when we're busy- oh we weren't EVER supposed to mention being short staffed either! I think all this crap started when we started calling patients "clients"! Seems like if we have clients now we should be making MUCH higher wages!! :chuckle
I HAVE THE TIME!? What planet are these people from?
NO, I don't have the time. Do you hear the patient across the hall screaming? My phone/pager/intercom beeping/calling? Irate family members from another room standing outside the door ready to pounce on me when I come out? NO, I DON"T HAVE THE TIME!
They rolled that out before I left the floor. They even had one of my coworkers "star" in a commercial in which she said it after fluffing a patient's pillow. I was horrified on all of our behalf but I seemed to be the only one. I refused to say it of course. Not even once could I get the words out.
:D 
If I went round uttering that phrase I'd be the one with Dementia very shortly.:chuckle
XB9S, BSN, MSN, EdD, RN, APN
1 Article; 3,020 Posts
Just a little thought, and I know I am cluless about US healthcare so feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Aren't your doctors self employed, and provide a service to the hospital. THerefore is it not good customer service for these contracted personel to use a similar system
Nurse bleeps doc, "doc I need this for my patient"
Doc: "Of course, and is there anything else I can do for you, I have the time"
Ok Ok I know, it doesn't work like that but there's no harm in using a little imagination every now and then.
What a rediculous policy, after you've told the patient you have the time how does it look when you have to rush away to deal with a sicker patient.
Oh and please hide this from UK healthcare bosses there's no point in giving them any ideas now is there.