Who links to me? X-ray Rocks: Time Waster

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Time Waster

The hopital admin. are instituting another time wasting protocol.

It's called SBAR. Anybody use that at their hosp.? Did it work?

SBAR stands for Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendations

Basically, as they've discribed it to us, the pt's nurse fills out a 'ticket to ride' every time the pt needs to leave the floor for a procedure. The questions that they fill out are like,


Wheelchair? yes/no (duh, every pt gets a wheelchair ride)
O2 y/n
Circle O2 level: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12
circle one: pt stands alone, two person lift, pt immobile
Location of pt pain?:
Level of pain:
Does pain move around?:
Pt confused/disorientated?:
IV: y/n
IV Location?:
IV taped in place? y/n
IV gauge?:
Multiple IV tries?
If so, are repeat IV locations bandaged?
Pt wearing any jewelry?:
Pt provided with slippers and robe?
RN/LPN to sign:
RN to sign if pt changes noted:
OK this is silly!
Sure I want to know if the pt is on O2 or if they're confused. I also would like to know if they are a 2 man lift(so I can bring the strong man we keep in the hallway closet ha,ha), but I can ask the nurse these questions!
Also, I can, instead of reading a piece of paper that was filled out the night before, by the previous shift, talk to the nurse or aide or whoever and tell them, "Oh by the way I'm taking 314 for their x-ray. Do they need O2? Are they combative?" Ect.
That way they won't freak out when they see an empty bed and think the pt. has escaped!
It's not like we are a huge hospital - there are 21 beds in med/surg, 4 in Ob, 4 in ICU, and 15 in the locked mental health ward.
It's just one more piece of paper the nurse has to fill out.
And our hospital is supposed to be paper-less!
Why don't they put this info into the digital chart?
Then before we go to pick the pt up off the floor (sounds bad) we'll know that they need O2 , ect.

2 comments:

X-Ray Geek said...

Ever wonder if hospitals and paper companies are one in the same???

I can see some of that info being helpful but come on. Do you really give a hoot if it took them 3 tries to start an IV if they are just having a chest x-ray?

Let me guess, it took at least 12 people 2 weeks straight in a meeting to come up with this form...

X-ray Rocks! said...

Oh at least 2 weeks.
They have committees studying everything here, but we never see any good changes. 2 years ago they talked about installing benches by the ER for people to sit on while they're waiting for public transport- we still don't have them.
It's very sad.
And they have a consultant who comes every month to head a committee on reducing costs.
They pay him a lot, he's been coming here for 4 years and we haven't seen ANY changes.