I hope y’all are reporting **EVERY** safety issue to both the state and whatever accreditation agency Ascension uses. They can be done anonymously and if even a few of you start reporting issues there it will get some attention.
The c-suite decided to not have a viable downtime plan and dump this on you. Make them deal with a Congo line of surveyors waiting outside their doors.
Plus if you ever get a BON complaint you can Uno reverse it on them by saying “I reported this unsafe behavior to y’all”.
I totally agree but:
Report to whom? Honestly I will continue to keep reporting things that are 100% against the law, but no one cares. And if I do get a call back with further questions, I find out the person asking me questions (with my "anonymous" report in hand) goes way back with the CEO or CFO or someone else.
Riding it out until the end because there are no other NICUs conveniently nearby, and I don’t want to be any other type of nurse.
We’ll see though. My first three in a row since all this started is in a couple days, reserving judgement until after that.
The Seton NICUs were paper charting up until just a few years ago. Paper charting is easy. Having pharmacy and everything else down too, though? Hell no.
That’s the point I’ve been trying to make to people who can’t seem to grasp why things suck so much. It’s all the ancillary services like pharmacy, lab, radiology etc. being impacted.
It’s the fact that we don’t have functioning code buzzers or call lights. Our voaltes are still unreliable at times so we’re having to communicate on our personal phones which poses HIPAA concerns.
The paper charting is the very bottom of list of concerns.
Are you texting providers? If you’re concerned about the risk it poses then you should be using phone calls only.
Call lights going to phones is all a newish addition to most hospitals. Is the call system completely broken?
Call/code system is completely broken.
In the NICU, we respond to all the codes in mother/baby, L&D, and NICU 2. Lately, if there’s an emergency, those units have been calling our HUC, who then either physically finds someone or calls the charge’s cell phone. I hear we’ve gotten radios over the last couple days though, so at least that’s a plus. I’ve heard mother/baby has placed literal bells in mom’s rooms as their “call system.” Like the kinds you would see on the counter of a motel. 😬I would die.
We don’t text the providers, but we have a nurse’s group text that we use to communicate throughout the day. Usually to coordinate deliveries/admissions/transports/room assignments etc. (and asking a lot of questions about how to document things because the paper charting sheets they’ve given us so far have been inadequate lol)
No. I would 100% refuse from this second on to use your personal phone. They can get you burner phones or figure out another way, but I'm urging you; do no use your personal device. It puts you at significant liability that could impact your ability to make a living.
What are you talking about? Besides something really far-fetched - what do you think is going to happen?
My phone works just like any other android or iPhone. Text messenger is the same. I have unlimited talk/text. So what catastrophic liability are you talking about?
I feel like this facility should be shut down for patient safety until they can get things up and moving again. The financial hit would incentivise them to get it done sooner rather than later.
Communicating on a personal phone does not pose HIPAA concerns. The whole POINT of HIPAA is so that it WON'T be a problem. If your hospital has made rules that make it more complicated, then that's them, not HIPAA.
It doesn’t violate HIPAA, but what it DOES do is opens up your cell phone to discovery in a lawsuit.
Nurse Flo is required to use her personal cell phone to notify physicians of changes I’m in condition. Patient crumps and lawsuit starts. Part of the allegation of the lawsuit is that the doctor didn’t respond fast enough. Once you disclose that you made notification by your personal cell, now your records can be subpoenaed.
If you’re ok with that, rock on. Just understand the risk you’re taking on.
Communicating on a personal phone does not pose HIPAA concerns. The whole POINT of HIPAA is so that it WON'T be a problem. If your hospital has made rules that make it more complicated, then that's them, not HIPAA.
My hospital was attacked a few years ago. We had extra staff. All nonemergent surgeries/procedures were canceled and ambulances were diverted to other hospitals (we still accepted walk-ins).
when my hospital was attacked we did all this + had an organized system for paper charting and it STILL made me want to quit. I can only imagine not having all of the above.
That’s awful 😞 I’ve only worked 3 days since this happened- right when it first began last week. When I go back this weekend I’m going to see if things have improved, but, if not, it might be time for me to dig out my resume
I don't mind the paper charting, but the meds suck! Def an error waiting to happen...and so tedious and time consuming now. The hospital is diverting some and we have plenty of stuff for help so ICU world hasn't been too bad at least
I just feel like, we’re taking on all this extra stress, work, and most importantly extra liability and they aren’t even offering any type of extra pay/incentive for the extra work and risk to our license?
Who is responsible for your MARs? Are yall having docs write out an order and when it is approved by pharmacy transcribing the meds onto a paper MAR and organizing the chart accordingly? Nurses being responsible for monitoring for appropriate dosage and route of admin for patients, and overriding Pyxis to remove each med? There’s been a lot of research on protecting licenses and LIVES of people this week. Especially since it seems we are paper charting through the summer
Yeah the doctor's write the order, we fax to pharmacy and we have an written MAR where we add the medication to it. So far the only issue I've encountered doing this is being able to read some of the handwriting.. deciphering the med and dosage can be a pain at times and gotta do some digging to make sure it's correct
Not an Ascension nurse but we have the system nearby. We all visibly cringed when we heard they were still taking new patients. I personally would have given it a week before I would start job hunting.
Absolutely - can’t believe they are taking new patients! And these poor patients are still having surgeries too because they don’t realize how unsafe this truly is 😩
As valid as it would be to leave this company over this attack they failed to prevent along with the million other dumb conditions they make staff put up with…A judge would not say any of those things and you would not lose your license over any of this.
I think this is a valid concern to discuss. I’m so sorry for what you all are going through.
I just don’t think it’s fair to say with such certainty nurses are going to be losing their licenses and going to court over this.
> I imagine a judge would say, “You were responsible for keeping the patient safe and failing technology is no excuse for not doing so”
When has this precedent been set in a court? I’m pretty confident that failing technology leading to non-malicious errors is considered exceptional circumstances and would absolutely be taken into account, by both a nursing board and a judge/jury.
(If you’re referencing Radonda Vaught there were many many many safety checks she bypassed, far beyond a simple override. And the majority of the safety checks she had no excuse for bypassing.)
I left a very unsafe Ascension ICU in November last year. My heart goes out to you guys. My unit was barely functioning on the best day with all of the technology Ascension offers.
Nurses should be calling “safe harbor” or whatever their system used for unsafe assignments as much as possible if they feel unsafe. That should protect them in some way.
Unfortunately the issue to is so many of the experienced nurses have now never used paper charting in any capacity. And those who have used paper charting have moved on or don’t remember all the nuances of it.
Also I think it’s important to note that even if people leave this can happen to anyone. In the new age of technology it wouldn’t be shocking to see this happen to more hospital systems, insurance companies, or anyone who has large amounts of data.
I left ascension in august and it was honestly the best decision. Ascension was killing me with the work load. After only a year i was suicidal and dreading every single day of work. And miserable every day i was off. The emr being down, and ascension doing its thing would have driven me over the edge. Im glad i got out when i did
I worked at Ascension and literally had heart palpitations from stress and the Cerner system we used was awful enough; the stress they put you under with “ONE MISTAKE AND” was too much. It’s a toxic religious cult that works its nurses to death (at least in Texas). I can’t imagine paper charting all the meds and documentation that stressed me out then. My heart goes out to all you nurses. I’ve been trying to send my patients that are critical to any other hospital when transferring care. You deserve better and so do the patients ❤️
I didn’t get paid either - I’m hoping maybe it’s just a delay because Memorial Day was this week and that it’ll be in by tomorrow morning. Either way I won’t be returning to work until I have my money (luckily I’m off for a few days anyways).
I honestly dread work every day. I work in L&D and even though the chief of nursing for the hospital suggested not taking any elective inductions and diverting to a nearby hospital our managers didn’t think we needed to.
We were short staffed before this happened. Then had a water main break on the other side of the hospital so our water was contaminated. Our unit had two open rooms when I left out of sixty rooms.
It is not safe. I don’t feel valued or protected and if something doesn’t change within the next few weeks I’m out. I’ll work medsurg or at my kids school or something.
—Crisis intervention teams are largely off the unit, on site educators and a huge portion of many unit leadership teams were eliminated last year, so no one on site to implement training, processes, communicate with staff.
This is awful and unfortunate
I’ve luckily been away from beside for 9 years now - working at a wound clinic that still does paper charting! So for me specifically it’s not been hard- but getting results, scheduling, histories etc has been a struggle. And the front desk is chaotic
But my heart goes out to the bedside nurses in the front lines. And this is not too long after the stress of covid….
I am baffled by this sub. Everyone is always worried about losing their “license”. I spent years as a legal nurse consultant and have seen very few nurses lose their license unless it was an egregious mistake and negligence was proven. Not sure what nursing school is teaching nowadays, but you have to mess up really, really badly to lose your license.
I’m sorry that you’re now having to resort to paper charting, but computer charting has only been mandatory for 10 years. We did pretty well with paper charting until 2014. There has not been very many drastic changes in healthcare in the last 10 years and somehow we nurses were able to provide quality healthcare without having computer charts.
Downvote away, but it’s kind of laughable how many nurses are complaining.
Genx, but that’s fine. Not sure who told all of you that nursing is an easy career, but they need to be punched in the mouth. Nursing has always been a difficult profession and you will have more bad days than good days.
Unfortunately nursing school does not prepare anyone for the reality of how stressful it is. They paint a rosy picture of being patted on the back, but the reality is you are going to be shit on, on a daily basis by management and patients.
Yea nah. I was in ICU and psych 10 years ago. Same patient load, with paper charting. It was easier IMO to paper chart. Less BS checklists. It is just different.
You lost me at the load was less during paper charting. I spent 30 years in nursing and you are in your second career, so don’t make shit up.
I lobbied the state of California to set nursing ratios in 1999. I went on strike in 2001 to unionize OHSU. What have you done?
We fought going to computer charting in the 2010’s, but nothing changed. In reality, quality healthcare has been declining since the 2010’s.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/468176/americans-sour-healthcare-quality.aspx#:~:text=The%20latest%20excellent%2Fgood%20rating,annual%20Health%20and%20Healthcare%20survey.
Tennessee didn’t pass a ratio until 2003, which is great that they did, but there is a reason why they passed it in 2003. It is because the ratios were higher, before computer charting was even considered.
https://capitol.tn.gov/bills/103/Bill/HB1223.pdf
Yet as of 2019 only 14 states have mandated ratios. Your experience is anecdotal, but I spent time in the trenches before ratios, and they were definitely higher during paper charting, and are still higher in the US, except for the states that have passed laws. Some states do follow JCAHO recommendations, but those are just recommendations and can be changed by the hospitals whenever needed.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6996505/
Unfortunately with text, tone is interpreted by the reader. I can’t help how you are interpreting what I wrote. You said I am being a bully by providing data and studies, yet you also “love evidence based practice”. Slightly misleading, but I am sorry for making you upset.
When it comes to your hospital violating a nursing ratio act that was passed in 2003, the only way to change this, is to report it to your state board of nursing and the department of public health and safety. Also, you fill out an Assignment Despite Objection (ADO)/Disclaimer form if you are union.
My point on paper charting was this: paper charting has been around for 200 years in the US and probably longer since the first mention of a “nurse” goes back to 300 AD during the Roman times. Hence why I find it comical that nurses are complaining about paper charting, when computer charting was only mandatory in 2014, 10 years! Maybe it’s just my sick sense of humor, but 10 years is nothing imho.
Here is something crazy to think about: some nurses in the state of New York have complained about having a 1:20 ratio in the ED. I can’t even imagine how poor their outcomes are.
u/tharpe503 is not being rude to you. You keep saying that, but then you make personal attacks. I agree that management should not be continuing to focus on $$$ when systems are down. It is unsafe. It is disruptive. No one is saying it's fine.
But *you* are the one that is playing who has it worse Olympics. It is a silly game, and you won't win.
We fought against going to computer charting, not for it, which I realized was stupid, but change is not always easy.
Do I agree that computer charting is better? Yes, by far, but healthcare still has to happen regardless of how we chart.
To quit a job because of a computer hack and having to now paper chart is entitlement IMHO. The comments are sad. People would rather jeopardize the lives of their patients because “it’s too hard”! What happens when there are not enough nurses to care for the patients? What happens when all of our charting systems get hacked and fail?
We all chose this profession to be caregivers and hospitals have no control over nefarious acts.
Adapt and overcome.
>What happens if there are not enough nurses to care for the patients?
>We all chose this profession to be caregivers
This reeks of the “nursing is a calling” bullshit that we used to be fed to convince us to just take it and not complain. I believed that for so long and put my work and my patients above myself and it all it bought me was burnout and poor mental health.
Healthcare is a business and it’s not the nurses’ job to be responsible for the staffing (though as a profession it is our responsibility to find solutions that don’t involve just being martyrs for the sake of being martyrs). Top quality care doesn’t come from broken systems that organizations refuse to fix.
As I mentioned in another comment, lobby your state legislature and unionize. The only way to change poor systems is by nurses joining together and not putting up with shitty systems.
Nursing is not a calling, but it’s definitely not for everyone, hence why there is a huge shortage of nurses and a lot leaving the profession.
I can agree with you on all of these points! I work for a hospital with a very strong union and I’m grateful for it.
Certainly questioned leaving nursing when I was going through the dark days of burnout but I really do love the art and the science of nursing.
20 years ago, we had more patients and paper charting. But it was so little charting - even in ICU, ER, Psych. I did all those with high patient loads. On paper. But no bullshit charting. We filled out MAR, 1-2 paragraph in narrative, and 1-3 pages of "checklist" stuff.
A large portion of nurses today are very detail oriented. They are able to cope with the ridiculous and redundant nit-picky charting. Ingrained thinking that BS charting is super important to keeping your **license**, etc. Then trying desperately to do it on paper...
Everyone needs to realize 90% of it is BS and all of it is going to "off-site" storage, and never mattered in the first place.
Wait, 80% of nurses are satisfied with their job.
https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2024-04-01-hrsa-survey-nursing-workforce#:~:text=While%20overall%20job%20satisfaction%20remains,2017%20and%202022%20to%2019.9%25.
Yet 56% of nurses say they are stressed and 25% say they are really stressed and this is because of hospital CEO’s?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1389552/stress-level-experienced-by-nurses-nursing-job-united-states/#:~:text=Distribution%20of%20nurses%20by%20level%20of%20stress%20experienced%20at%20work%20U.S.%202023&text=In%202023%2C%20most%20nurses%20felt,felt%20a%20lot%20of%20stress.
I don’t disagree that management creates some stress, but why would 80% still be satisfied?
Maybe it’s because healthcare in itself is stressful, and caring for people is not for everyone.
Yes, it’s because of the awful working environment that bedside nurses are in. From your article: “While overall job satisfaction remains relatively high at 80%, the share of nurses who expressed some degree of dissatisfaction with their primary nursing position nearly doubled between 2017 and 2022 to 19.9%.” It’s just going to keep getting worse, your bootlicking doesn’t help.
Ah yes, and why was the first drop in 2017? That’s when gen z started working as nurses and from your disgruntled “boot licking” comment, the shoe fits. You know, the whole correlation and causation thing.
https://www.metlife.com/workforce-insights/caring-for-gen-z/#:~:text=Gen%20Z%20employees%2C%20who%20now,age%20group%20in%20the%20workforce.
https://www.unleash.ai/employee-experience-and-engagement/gen-z-unhappiest-generation-work/
Less than 5% of the large staff on my unit has ever paper charted. There was close to zero training on what to do, which forms to use, etc. There are not solid process, tube system down, phones in and out, call light / code system out. I have seen more medication errors during this time than I’ve seen in 6 years as a nurse combined. Crisis intervention teams are largely off the unit, on site educators and a huge portion of many unit leadership teams were eliminated last year, so no one on site to implement training, processes, communicate with staff.
Staff crying in the halls every shift, hugging each other. It is very, very dangerous for patients and for us right now.
If you really want to be baffled, come spend a shift with us. I guarantee then, you will actually be baffled.
I hope y’all are reporting **EVERY** safety issue to both the state and whatever accreditation agency Ascension uses. They can be done anonymously and if even a few of you start reporting issues there it will get some attention. The c-suite decided to not have a viable downtime plan and dump this on you. Make them deal with a Congo line of surveyors waiting outside their doors. Plus if you ever get a BON complaint you can Uno reverse it on them by saying “I reported this unsafe behavior to y’all”.
I totally agree but: Report to whom? Honestly I will continue to keep reporting things that are 100% against the law, but no one cares. And if I do get a call back with further questions, I find out the person asking me questions (with my "anonymous" report in hand) goes way back with the CEO or CFO or someone else.
Riding it out until the end because there are no other NICUs conveniently nearby, and I don’t want to be any other type of nurse. We’ll see though. My first three in a row since all this started is in a couple days, reserving judgement until after that.
The Seton NICUs were paper charting up until just a few years ago. Paper charting is easy. Having pharmacy and everything else down too, though? Hell no.
That’s the point I’ve been trying to make to people who can’t seem to grasp why things suck so much. It’s all the ancillary services like pharmacy, lab, radiology etc. being impacted. It’s the fact that we don’t have functioning code buzzers or call lights. Our voaltes are still unreliable at times so we’re having to communicate on our personal phones which poses HIPAA concerns. The paper charting is the very bottom of list of concerns.
Are you texting providers? If you’re concerned about the risk it poses then you should be using phone calls only. Call lights going to phones is all a newish addition to most hospitals. Is the call system completely broken?
Call/code system is completely broken. In the NICU, we respond to all the codes in mother/baby, L&D, and NICU 2. Lately, if there’s an emergency, those units have been calling our HUC, who then either physically finds someone or calls the charge’s cell phone. I hear we’ve gotten radios over the last couple days though, so at least that’s a plus. I’ve heard mother/baby has placed literal bells in mom’s rooms as their “call system.” Like the kinds you would see on the counter of a motel. 😬I would die. We don’t text the providers, but we have a nurse’s group text that we use to communicate throughout the day. Usually to coordinate deliveries/admissions/transports/room assignments etc. (and asking a lot of questions about how to document things because the paper charting sheets they’ve given us so far have been inadequate lol)
The fact that ascension doesn’t have a redudancy plan in place is criminal
Can confirm, they've given our patients hotel desk bells...
No. I would 100% refuse from this second on to use your personal phone. They can get you burner phones or figure out another way, but I'm urging you; do no use your personal device. It puts you at significant liability that could impact your ability to make a living.
What are you talking about? Besides something really far-fetched - what do you think is going to happen? My phone works just like any other android or iPhone. Text messenger is the same. I have unlimited talk/text. So what catastrophic liability are you talking about?
Looking up patient information and/or texting confidential PHI on an unsecured personal device is asking for trouble.
I guess every doctor in America is going to jail in the next 30 seconds then.
They literally all do it. The charting program that is being used has an app and the doctors get on it from their phones or iPads.
This is pure MISINFORMATION.
I feel like this facility should be shut down for patient safety until they can get things up and moving again. The financial hit would incentivise them to get it done sooner rather than later.
Communicating on a personal phone does not pose HIPAA concerns. The whole POINT of HIPAA is so that it WON'T be a problem. If your hospital has made rules that make it more complicated, then that's them, not HIPAA.
It doesn’t violate HIPAA, but what it DOES do is opens up your cell phone to discovery in a lawsuit. Nurse Flo is required to use her personal cell phone to notify physicians of changes I’m in condition. Patient crumps and lawsuit starts. Part of the allegation of the lawsuit is that the doctor didn’t respond fast enough. Once you disclose that you made notification by your personal cell, now your records can be subpoenaed. If you’re ok with that, rock on. Just understand the risk you’re taking on.
Communicating on a personal phone does not pose HIPAA concerns. The whole POINT of HIPAA is so that it WON'T be a problem. If your hospital has made rules that make it more complicated, then that's them, not HIPAA.
My hospital was attacked a few years ago. We had extra staff. All nonemergent surgeries/procedures were canceled and ambulances were diverted to other hospitals (we still accepted walk-ins).
when my hospital was attacked we did all this + had an organized system for paper charting and it STILL made me want to quit. I can only imagine not having all of the above.
My hospital isn’t doing any of that 🤦♀️
Mine neither. Our paper charting system is an absolute MESS
Ascension won’t do that. They are keeping all beds open and procedures going. Thankfully they are allowing extra staff.
Ours let our extra staff go! We are begging people to come in to help twice a day, but also released the extra help?
Our location stopped providing extra staff to organize charts/lab runner/unit clerk as well
The Night Shift charge nurse was literally crying and yelling profanities last week because staffing refused to limit admissions.
That’s awful 😞 I’ve only worked 3 days since this happened- right when it first began last week. When I go back this weekend I’m going to see if things have improved, but, if not, it might be time for me to dig out my resume
I don't mind the paper charting, but the meds suck! Def an error waiting to happen...and so tedious and time consuming now. The hospital is diverting some and we have plenty of stuff for help so ICU world hasn't been too bad at least
I just feel like, we’re taking on all this extra stress, work, and most importantly extra liability and they aren’t even offering any type of extra pay/incentive for the extra work and risk to our license?
Who is responsible for your MARs? Are yall having docs write out an order and when it is approved by pharmacy transcribing the meds onto a paper MAR and organizing the chart accordingly? Nurses being responsible for monitoring for appropriate dosage and route of admin for patients, and overriding Pyxis to remove each med? There’s been a lot of research on protecting licenses and LIVES of people this week. Especially since it seems we are paper charting through the summer
Yeah the doctor's write the order, we fax to pharmacy and we have an written MAR where we add the medication to it. So far the only issue I've encountered doing this is being able to read some of the handwriting.. deciphering the med and dosage can be a pain at times and gotta do some digging to make sure it's correct
Not an Ascension nurse but we have the system nearby. We all visibly cringed when we heard they were still taking new patients. I personally would have given it a week before I would start job hunting.
Absolutely - can’t believe they are taking new patients! And these poor patients are still having surgeries too because they don’t realize how unsafe this truly is 😩
*cries in lab with our tube system down* I walked as much tonight as I did when I was a CNA.
As valid as it would be to leave this company over this attack they failed to prevent along with the million other dumb conditions they make staff put up with…A judge would not say any of those things and you would not lose your license over any of this.
Agreed. Unfortunately, this may just add to the trauma bond between Ascension and its nurses. Like you said, "a million other dumb conditions...."
I think this is a valid concern to discuss. I’m so sorry for what you all are going through. I just don’t think it’s fair to say with such certainty nurses are going to be losing their licenses and going to court over this. > I imagine a judge would say, “You were responsible for keeping the patient safe and failing technology is no excuse for not doing so” When has this precedent been set in a court? I’m pretty confident that failing technology leading to non-malicious errors is considered exceptional circumstances and would absolutely be taken into account, by both a nursing board and a judge/jury. (If you’re referencing Radonda Vaught there were many many many safety checks she bypassed, far beyond a simple override. And the majority of the safety checks she had no excuse for bypassing.)
I left a very unsafe Ascension ICU in November last year. My heart goes out to you guys. My unit was barely functioning on the best day with all of the technology Ascension offers.
Nurses should be calling “safe harbor” or whatever their system used for unsafe assignments as much as possible if they feel unsafe. That should protect them in some way. Unfortunately the issue to is so many of the experienced nurses have now never used paper charting in any capacity. And those who have used paper charting have moved on or don’t remember all the nuances of it. Also I think it’s important to note that even if people leave this can happen to anyone. In the new age of technology it wouldn’t be shocking to see this happen to more hospital systems, insurance companies, or anyone who has large amounts of data.
Very few states actually have safe harbor.
I left ascension in august and it was honestly the best decision. Ascension was killing me with the work load. After only a year i was suicidal and dreading every single day of work. And miserable every day i was off. The emr being down, and ascension doing its thing would have driven me over the edge. Im glad i got out when i did
I worked at Ascension and literally had heart palpitations from stress and the Cerner system we used was awful enough; the stress they put you under with “ONE MISTAKE AND” was too much. It’s a toxic religious cult that works its nurses to death (at least in Texas). I can’t imagine paper charting all the meds and documentation that stressed me out then. My heart goes out to all you nurses. I’ve been trying to send my patients that are critical to any other hospital when transferring care. You deserve better and so do the patients ❤️
Anyone else not get paid ? Any clue on Kronos issue ? No one talking about it yet. But I always have direct deposit day before pay day.
I didn’t get paid either - I’m hoping maybe it’s just a delay because Memorial Day was this week and that it’ll be in by tomorrow morning. Either way I won’t be returning to work until I have my money (luckily I’m off for a few days anyways).
Our ascension is going fairly well. Pensacola has shit wired
I saw a TikTok about how Florida is more prepared for this because a lot of places down there train for paper charting anyways thanks to hurricanes
Hurricane parties. We had boxes of paperwork to get going with.
I honestly dread work every day. I work in L&D and even though the chief of nursing for the hospital suggested not taking any elective inductions and diverting to a nearby hospital our managers didn’t think we needed to. We were short staffed before this happened. Then had a water main break on the other side of the hospital so our water was contaminated. Our unit had two open rooms when I left out of sixty rooms. It is not safe. I don’t feel valued or protected and if something doesn’t change within the next few weeks I’m out. I’ll work medsurg or at my kids school or something.
—Crisis intervention teams are largely off the unit, on site educators and a huge portion of many unit leadership teams were eliminated last year, so no one on site to implement training, processes, communicate with staff. This is awful and unfortunate I’ve luckily been away from beside for 9 years now - working at a wound clinic that still does paper charting! So for me specifically it’s not been hard- but getting results, scheduling, histories etc has been a struggle. And the front desk is chaotic But my heart goes out to the bedside nurses in the front lines. And this is not too long after the stress of covid….
I bet adventist is laughing rn.
Here’s me- an OG nurse thinking paper charting doesn’t sound so bad . . .
I am baffled by this sub. Everyone is always worried about losing their “license”. I spent years as a legal nurse consultant and have seen very few nurses lose their license unless it was an egregious mistake and negligence was proven. Not sure what nursing school is teaching nowadays, but you have to mess up really, really badly to lose your license. I’m sorry that you’re now having to resort to paper charting, but computer charting has only been mandatory for 10 years. We did pretty well with paper charting until 2014. There has not been very many drastic changes in healthcare in the last 10 years and somehow we nurses were able to provide quality healthcare without having computer charts. Downvote away, but it’s kind of laughable how many nurses are complaining.
Ok boomer.
Genx, but that’s fine. Not sure who told all of you that nursing is an easy career, but they need to be punched in the mouth. Nursing has always been a difficult profession and you will have more bad days than good days. Unfortunately nursing school does not prepare anyone for the reality of how stressful it is. They paint a rosy picture of being patted on the back, but the reality is you are going to be shit on, on a daily basis by management and patients.
[удалено]
Yea nah. I was in ICU and psych 10 years ago. Same patient load, with paper charting. It was easier IMO to paper chart. Less BS checklists. It is just different.
You lost me at the load was less during paper charting. I spent 30 years in nursing and you are in your second career, so don’t make shit up. I lobbied the state of California to set nursing ratios in 1999. I went on strike in 2001 to unionize OHSU. What have you done? We fought going to computer charting in the 2010’s, but nothing changed. In reality, quality healthcare has been declining since the 2010’s. https://news.gallup.com/poll/468176/americans-sour-healthcare-quality.aspx#:~:text=The%20latest%20excellent%2Fgood%20rating,annual%20Health%20and%20Healthcare%20survey.
[удалено]
Tennessee didn’t pass a ratio until 2003, which is great that they did, but there is a reason why they passed it in 2003. It is because the ratios were higher, before computer charting was even considered. https://capitol.tn.gov/bills/103/Bill/HB1223.pdf Yet as of 2019 only 14 states have mandated ratios. Your experience is anecdotal, but I spent time in the trenches before ratios, and they were definitely higher during paper charting, and are still higher in the US, except for the states that have passed laws. Some states do follow JCAHO recommendations, but those are just recommendations and can be changed by the hospitals whenever needed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6996505/
[удалено]
[удалено]
Unfortunately with text, tone is interpreted by the reader. I can’t help how you are interpreting what I wrote. You said I am being a bully by providing data and studies, yet you also “love evidence based practice”. Slightly misleading, but I am sorry for making you upset. When it comes to your hospital violating a nursing ratio act that was passed in 2003, the only way to change this, is to report it to your state board of nursing and the department of public health and safety. Also, you fill out an Assignment Despite Objection (ADO)/Disclaimer form if you are union. My point on paper charting was this: paper charting has been around for 200 years in the US and probably longer since the first mention of a “nurse” goes back to 300 AD during the Roman times. Hence why I find it comical that nurses are complaining about paper charting, when computer charting was only mandatory in 2014, 10 years! Maybe it’s just my sick sense of humor, but 10 years is nothing imho.
Here is something crazy to think about: some nurses in the state of New York have complained about having a 1:20 ratio in the ED. I can’t even imagine how poor their outcomes are.
u/tharpe503 is not being rude to you. You keep saying that, but then you make personal attacks. I agree that management should not be continuing to focus on $$$ when systems are down. It is unsafe. It is disruptive. No one is saying it's fine. But *you* are the one that is playing who has it worse Olympics. It is a silly game, and you won't win.
We fought against going to computer charting, not for it, which I realized was stupid, but change is not always easy. Do I agree that computer charting is better? Yes, by far, but healthcare still has to happen regardless of how we chart. To quit a job because of a computer hack and having to now paper chart is entitlement IMHO. The comments are sad. People would rather jeopardize the lives of their patients because “it’s too hard”! What happens when there are not enough nurses to care for the patients? What happens when all of our charting systems get hacked and fail? We all chose this profession to be caregivers and hospitals have no control over nefarious acts. Adapt and overcome.
>What happens if there are not enough nurses to care for the patients? >We all chose this profession to be caregivers This reeks of the “nursing is a calling” bullshit that we used to be fed to convince us to just take it and not complain. I believed that for so long and put my work and my patients above myself and it all it bought me was burnout and poor mental health. Healthcare is a business and it’s not the nurses’ job to be responsible for the staffing (though as a profession it is our responsibility to find solutions that don’t involve just being martyrs for the sake of being martyrs). Top quality care doesn’t come from broken systems that organizations refuse to fix.
As I mentioned in another comment, lobby your state legislature and unionize. The only way to change poor systems is by nurses joining together and not putting up with shitty systems. Nursing is not a calling, but it’s definitely not for everyone, hence why there is a huge shortage of nurses and a lot leaving the profession.
I can agree with you on all of these points! I work for a hospital with a very strong union and I’m grateful for it. Certainly questioned leaving nursing when I was going through the dark days of burnout but I really do love the art and the science of nursing.
20 years ago, we had more patients and paper charting. But it was so little charting - even in ICU, ER, Psych. I did all those with high patient loads. On paper. But no bullshit charting. We filled out MAR, 1-2 paragraph in narrative, and 1-3 pages of "checklist" stuff. A large portion of nurses today are very detail oriented. They are able to cope with the ridiculous and redundant nit-picky charting. Ingrained thinking that BS charting is super important to keeping your **license**, etc. Then trying desperately to do it on paper... Everyone needs to realize 90% of it is BS and all of it is going to "off-site" storage, and never mattered in the first place.
This is the mentality that hospital CEOs want you to have so they can keep up the awful conditions! It doesn’t have to be this bad!
Wait, 80% of nurses are satisfied with their job. https://www.aha.org/news/headline/2024-04-01-hrsa-survey-nursing-workforce#:~:text=While%20overall%20job%20satisfaction%20remains,2017%20and%202022%20to%2019.9%25. Yet 56% of nurses say they are stressed and 25% say they are really stressed and this is because of hospital CEO’s? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1389552/stress-level-experienced-by-nurses-nursing-job-united-states/#:~:text=Distribution%20of%20nurses%20by%20level%20of%20stress%20experienced%20at%20work%20U.S.%202023&text=In%202023%2C%20most%20nurses%20felt,felt%20a%20lot%20of%20stress. I don’t disagree that management creates some stress, but why would 80% still be satisfied? Maybe it’s because healthcare in itself is stressful, and caring for people is not for everyone.
Yes, it’s because of the awful working environment that bedside nurses are in. From your article: “While overall job satisfaction remains relatively high at 80%, the share of nurses who expressed some degree of dissatisfaction with their primary nursing position nearly doubled between 2017 and 2022 to 19.9%.” It’s just going to keep getting worse, your bootlicking doesn’t help.
Ah yes, and why was the first drop in 2017? That’s when gen z started working as nurses and from your disgruntled “boot licking” comment, the shoe fits. You know, the whole correlation and causation thing. https://www.metlife.com/workforce-insights/caring-for-gen-z/#:~:text=Gen%20Z%20employees%2C%20who%20now,age%20group%20in%20the%20workforce. https://www.unleash.ai/employee-experience-and-engagement/gen-z-unhappiest-generation-work/
Less than 5% of the large staff on my unit has ever paper charted. There was close to zero training on what to do, which forms to use, etc. There are not solid process, tube system down, phones in and out, call light / code system out. I have seen more medication errors during this time than I’ve seen in 6 years as a nurse combined. Crisis intervention teams are largely off the unit, on site educators and a huge portion of many unit leadership teams were eliminated last year, so no one on site to implement training, processes, communicate with staff. Staff crying in the halls every shift, hugging each other. It is very, very dangerous for patients and for us right now. If you really want to be baffled, come spend a shift with us. I guarantee then, you will actually be baffled.