Where's My Nurse?

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

How do patients and other staff know where you are at work? Do you carry pagers? Cell phones? Room trackers of a different sort?

Are you for or against your system? Why?

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

We have to carry cell phones at work. If I am doing something and cannot answer, it rings back to the desk after a few rings. It can be very annoying if I'm doing an admission. On the other hand, if I'm in a critical situation with a patient, it's handy to be able to update the doc and take orders as the situation happens.

So overall, IMO carrying the cell phone is a good thing.

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

The med-surg floor i worked on has pagers that buzz when someone rings a light. You can automatically look down and see the room number on the display. Everyone there loves it. They also carry cellphones.

[BeenThereDoneThat74, MSN, RN]

i worked briefly at a hospital where we carried cell phones. great for tracking people down (calling pharmacy, paging docs and actually getting the call). not so great on the other end- family members, other disciplines, call bells transferred to your phone (that don't shut off until you get to the room- regardless of what yo're doing). not as 'cool' as i thought it would be.

[boulergirl, CNA]

At my workplace we have a pager system like the ones Marie_LPN described. We also have to wear walkie-talkies so co-workers can communicate across the building. In addition, evening and night shift staff have to wear a cordless phone in case the phone rings during off-hours. I feel like a pack mule with all this stuff in my pockets, and when I bend over, it dials the phone and sets off the walkie-talkie! Then we have a patient who pushes her PET tag at all hours of the night because she thinks it's time to get up or she's cold or whatever. Makes me feel like the Grinch: "All the NOISE, NOISE, NOISE, NOISE!"

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

The only thing i DON'T like about the walkie-talkies are those people who will talk about a pt. over them, using their name or room number, and not think twice about it.

[lady_jh_98]

I carry a cell phone. If I'm in the middle of something I don't bother answering it because it transfers the call to the nurse's station after a couple of rings. It gets annoying when the unit secretary transfers calls from pharmacy or a doctor to my cell when I'm in a patients room because I don't have the chart at hand.

[live4today, RN]

I carry a cell phone. If I'm in the middle of something I don't bother answering it because it transfers the call to the nurse's station after a couple of rings. It gets annoying when the unit secretary transfers calls from pharmacy or a doctor to my cell when I'm in a patients room because I don't have the chart at hand.

Ditto! :) Most places I've worked require their nurses to carry cell phones for every department, doctor, patient, and visitors of patients to access the nurse. We are farrrrrrrrrrrrr underpaid and overworked!

[talaxandra]

I love the pagers - they're so much quieter than our old system, where patient buzzers sounded throughout the ward. Also, in the old system a code was signalled by three buzzes - now we have a separate button for codes, which sounds on everyone's buzzer.

The resource nurse also carries a phone when there's no ward clerk - I quite like that, too, especially in emergencies.

[nbnurse95]

Noone is allowed to have any type of cell phone in our hospital. Signs everywhere telling visitors to shut them off. (apparently interferes with hospital equipment?)We have pagers but noone uses them. We don't like them. Our system is not technical at all. There's a small hand bell outside the nurse's station and we ring 3 times for RN, and 4 times for LPN. The only problem is, we all stick our heads out the doors at once to see who it's for. lol. Plus, we can't really use it during the night because we'd wake up all the patients. Not great but we've always done it this way.

[PedsERRN]

I work in an ED, and the charge nurse, security guard, and 2 of the doctors carry the phones. By summer, the whole hospital should be wired and every nurse on every unit will have one. I think it will be great!

nbnurse95-They aren't true cell phones, but wireless phones made especially not to interfere with equipment.

[palesarah]

we have "locators", little things we wear clipped to our shirts or badges. The same computer that handles our call bell system also shows our locations. A light also goes on over the door of the patient room when a nurse is in the room. The only thing I don't like about them is that the batteries dies out often, and it's easy to forget to wear!