So a question for ATOTers

[TraumaRN]

So I see people posting for medical advice, and their horror stories and even good stories from experiences in the medical field as patients.

What I'm wondering as an ER nurse is, what would YOU as a patient like to see improved as far as patient safety is concerned?

Go in detail as much as you like, tell a story whatever.

I ask because the CEO of my hospital system has challenged us to come up with ideas to improve patient safety, even though our patient safety has increased dramatically with electronic medical records and computerized charting he's challenging all the employees to think of ways patient safety could be improved. And while I have a few ideas of my own I wondered if AT might have a few ideas of their own especially since many of you have been patients before.

So, what could a hospital do to improve patient safety?

 

[moonbit]

What exactly do you mean by "patient safety?" I tend to think of that term in a very literal sense - keeping patients safe. But I have a feeling that you mean something more complicated.

 

[GasX]

stop emergency room doctors from walking through an emergency room sipping on a cup of coffee acting like they have no cares in the world. Every patient is in their counting the milliseconds and even a pretense of a sense of urgency from the docs is appreciated.

 

[GenHoth]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
stop emergency room doctors from walking through an emergency room sipping on a cup of coffee acting like they have no cares in the world. Every patient is in their counting the milliseconds and even a pretense of a sense of urgency from the docs is appreciated.

Yeah, forget patient saftey. One of my friends waited 12 hours in an ER for stitches this past year. It took minutes to fix his problem but the staff was too stuck up and useless to realize even after I told them, that it would require a nurse 5 minutes to get one patient out of the way.

 

[purepolly]

I'll bite.

My biggest pet peeve is the placement of inappropriate patients on your unit because of "bed availability".

For example:

Admission of ETOH/manic depressive/suicidal/violent combatives (you pick the disorder) on to a med-surg floor because they are "inappropriate" for the psych floor. Yep, that makes a whole hell of a lot of sense, put your craziest patients on the busiest floor with truly weak, sick people...until the psych people decide 2,3,4,5 days later they want to deal with them.

Attempted admission of a male surgical patient to a women's health floor (post-partum). Someone in the ER dept was asleep when they tried that one.

Direct admits also blow. Have the common courtesy to call to say you are admitting someone to the floor, instead of just having a transport aide drop them off in the hall.

 

[imported_Lothar]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
So I see people posting for medical advice, and their horror stories and even good stories from experiences in the medical field as patients.

What I'm wondering as an ER nurse is, what would YOU as a patient like to see improved as far as patient safety is concerned?

Go in detail as much as you like, tell a story whatever.

I ask because the CEO of my hospital system has challenged us to come up with ideas to improve patient safety, even though our patient safety has increased dramatically with electronic medical records and computerized charting he's challenging all the employees to think of ways patient safety could be improved. And while I have a few ideas of my own I wondered if AT might have a few ideas of their own especially since many of you have been patients before.

So, what could a hospital do to improve patient safety?

Reduce the amount of medication errors caused by nurses :evil:

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: Lothar

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
So I see people posting for medical advice, and their horror stories and even good stories from experiences in the medical field as patients.

What I'm wondering as an ER nurse is, what would YOU as a patient like to see improved as far as patient safety is concerned?

Go in detail as much as you like, tell a story whatever.

I ask because the CEO of my hospital system has challenged us to come up with ideas to improve patient safety, even though our patient safety has increased dramatically with electronic medical records and computerized charting he's challenging all the employees to think of ways patient safety could be improved. And while I have a few ideas of my own I wondered if AT might have a few ideas of their own especially since many of you have been patients before.

So, what could a hospital do to improve patient safety?

Reduce the amount of medication errors caused by nurses :evil:

Nothing in writing, except as a backup to the digital record.

 

[vi edit]

One of my biggest beefs is accountability and enforcement of it.

This ranges all the way from the lowest guy on the totem pole up to untouchable MD's. Hospitals are so stretched thin for staffing that they rarely ever dump a poor clinician, they just ship them off to a less intense floor/unit where they can't cause as much harm.

When it comes to MD's you rarely ever see one admit wrong or see one of their fellow doc's ever testify against them even though they clearly were in the wrong. It just gets worse as you go up in the specialists since they are even more likely to pack up their toys and set up shop at another facility.

There's not many other fields where there is such a shortage of workers and employers are so desperate for labor that they overlook poor and dangerous workers.

 

[bctbct]

I once suggested to a PA that the doctors advice prior to veiwing a wound (doc left before uncovered) did not seem wise after seeing the actual wound. I asked the PA to have to doc come back and see the wound, PA left and then came back, said that the doc said to do as instructed.

IMO PA should have insisted the doc look at it. I was right.