The Glade 4.0

My manager sent out an email regarding the comments sent in from patients that had been treated in the ER. I am amazed at what people expect ....


1. The Nurse was friendly to me, but I just didn't get a warm feeling.

2. The Nurses were very rude and inconsiderate, they were drinking water at the nurses station in plain view and I was NPO.

3. The Nurse acted like she was tired and ready to go home.

4. I asked for a warm blanket and it took 10 minutes before I got one.

5. I told the doctor what pain medication I wanted, but he wouldn't give it to me.

6. I'm very upset, there were no TV's in ER and I missed the football game while I was waiting to be admitted.

7. The Nurse didn't ask me if I wanted a cup of water.

8. The Nurse didn't seem to care about me as a person.

9. The Doctor didn't spend any time getting to know me.

10. The warm blanket I was given wasnt very warm.


These are real comments that were sent in...I am amazed at what people expect. These are just the negative comments, luckily our positive ones far outweighed the negative and our Press Ganey scores are in the high 90's. Guess you can't please everyone.

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

You should reply to the next person who asks for a warm blanket, "I'm sorry. We've had complaints about our warm blankets. So now we only offer 'tepid blankets'. Would you like one of those, instead?"

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

What's an NPO?

And the correct reply to #10 is "the blanket is only as warm as you are"

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nil per os
No food/fluids.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I am not sure at your hospital, but our patients want to be treated like its a spa/hotel. I sickens me the number of people, primarily 40's-50's who upon admittance to the hospital believe that they are now princes of the Universe. I want to drag them up to the bone marrow department to show them what real suffering and a hospital stay is.

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

No complaints about not being able to host a family reunion in the ER room? You got off easy, girl

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I'm doubly amazed that these are ER complaints, not just regular hospital complaints.

After my recent stay, my only 2 negative comments about that hospital would have been "I am quite hydrated after 3 bags of saline solution. I'm also tired of going to the bathroom every 45 minutes. I think we could dispense with the 4th one." and "Keep in mind that when you wake me at 3 am to take my vitals, you just inadvertently boosted my blood pressure a good 10-15 points and thereby defeated what you were trying to accomplish."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

These ones see legit to me. Bedside manner is crucial, and feedback on the quality/comfort of things like blankets, beds, pillows, etc. is useful info for the hospital to have when it comes time to order new ones.

I guess I look at them in a different light...some people act extremely entitled and it's usually those that you cannot ever please.

Someone that says the Nurse seemed to not care about me? I could maybe take that seriously if it was quantified. Something vague like that? How can you know what it was that didn't make them happy. Besides, who is happy they are in ER from the get go....so do they want the nurse to be giving them a big warm hug and spending time chatting, that would maybe show them the nurse cared. But, realistically? Do nurses have the time for that? NO...patients want to be in and out in a short time period and we have to chart all the information that saves us from being sued...do we have time to be all chatty and as caring as they want? Prolly not. That doesn't excuse rudeness, which I don't think this comment was talking about. Patients need to be understanding and realize they are 1 in maybe 50+ people being seen, all in various states of need. It's usually the ones that are in the least amount of distress that are in the biggest hurry and want the most. Same with the Doctors. Bedside manne is important, but when you have 20 other patients you are responsible for, as well as meeting the "you will see a dr in 29 min or less" rule..it's hard to find the time to chat and talk like most patients want to do. Let alone the fact that tons of people come to ER for insignificant things...to fill a prescription...when you have had a cold/cough for 5 days and the chance to go to your PCP but instead, choose to come on Saturday and bring the whole family with 5 kids... And can you check everyone out since we are all here?

As for the blanket warmer...since when do people expect to get a warm blanket in ER? This is not a hotel spa...getting a blanket that is warm is EXTRA, when the blanket is not very warm, it is usually because ER has had so many patients and we can't keep the warmer stocked to get them to temperature. I don't think there is a warmer out there that will instantly warm blankets. As well as the fact if you truly belonged in ER, you wouldn't care what the temp of the blanket was.


So, from my point of view, there are incredibly selfish comments from entitled people.

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

Yeah, ER doctors shouldn't be taking time to get to know the patient... Normal doctors at a hospital? Yrs, that's part of bedside manner. But, honestly, how long is a patient typically in the care of an ER, let alone a specific doctor there?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Actually, DE, both your complaints would be better referred to the doctor who wrote your orders, and not the hospital itself, which was just carrying them out. And both of them break down to a lack of communication as to why you were getting the fluids and vitals at 3AM. It's a bit harder to nail down exactly why each was ordered by your doc, so I'll try to stick to generalities.

As to the 4th bag of fluids, yes you were hydrated. But how long would your body have stayed hydrated without the fluids? Your diagnosis and possibly the medications you were being given might have made it so that keeping you that hydrated was a better option than reacting when you began to show signs of dehydration again.

For the 3AM vitals, sounds to me like you may have been getting vitals taken every four hours. How often they measure vitals can be a sign of how acute your condition is. Your medications could warrant closer monitoring because they have vasoactive properties or side effects. So "what they were trying to accomplish" may not have been what you thought it was. "10-15 points" of elevation isn't that big a deal and can be in the acceptable range for a patient on my unit. But a large deviation needs to be noticed, and a person normally around running around 150/80 dropping to 90/50 or spiking to 200/98 needs treatment.

And here's the kicker, DE. You could, at any time, told the staff "No, I don't want that". And they would have. They may have tried to convince you otherwise, they probably would have documented it, and you might have had the doc come talk to you, but they would have stopped if you stuck to your guns on the issue.

Anyways, hope that helps clarify some stuff for ya, DE!

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Women are from Hoboken, men are from Trenton. ~ Jimmy Kimmel

I think the problem is that nurses don't dress like this...

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I can see how a tired nurse would find those complaints problematic. That's fine - its not the nurses job to fix. The ospital management should perhaps be thinking "we need more blankets, and shorter shifts - can I make that happen?" though.

Just an opinion

Nope, Sui... I know it's your opinion ) sok, but )


No matter how short the shift....a person that is thankful and nice always gets the better care. I think this is true in every service based job, not just hospitals. The place you do want good care and comfort is in a hospital, though. It's reality. If you are grumpy, no one wants to be around you. Hospital management doesn't care about the most of the extremely negative comments, because they are from people who cannot be pleased, especially if they are vague. Now if it was a comment naming a specific nurse, that would be dealt with. Management is only concerned with being in the top 90% for satisfaction. If that is true, no changes will occur. I just was and still am amazed at how people are so entitled..they really think it is "owed" to them and they deserve to be treated like they are in a hotel..yet they will do nothing for themselves. There are people that think just because they are in the hospital that they should be waited on hand and foot, even though they are capable of doing for themselves. If you could give yourself a bath before you came in, you can do it by yourself when I give you the items needed. There is no reason to demand what you can still do yourself. It's those people that drive me crazy.

DE, with afib protocol for vitals q4 . Too bad they didn't tell you that though. On the fluid, my guess was it was just running at a "keep open" rate more than for a hydration standpoint, I always run saline in your IV no matter what, because it keeps your IV patent. Only reason not to would be in someone who can't tolerate the extra. Come be my patient! Sounds like you would be easy to take care of

Mook . I will dress like that when all of my patients look like Jared Leto. :p

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

That would have been great if the doctor had actually bothered to discuss this, or if the hospital staff had expressed that they were complying with orders. When you say to the nurse "hey, this is the third bag and I'm in the can every 45 minutes, is another bag really necessary" the appropriate answer is not to just smile, nod and hook the damn thing up.



Probably a pretty long time since I had plenty of water to drink. I had to quit drinking it because I was pissing so much as it was. More importantly, that information should have been communicated to me if there was some aspect of my medication that required it, rather than just shoving more and more fluids into me when I point out that it's causing discomfort.

For the 3AM vitals, sounds to me like you may have been getting vitals taken every four hours. How often they measure vitals can be a sign of how acute your condition is. Your medications could warrant closer monitoring because they have vasoactive properties or side effects. So "what they were trying to accomplish" may not have been what you thought it was. "10-15 points" of elevation isn't that big a deal and can be in the acceptable range for a patient on my unit. But a large deviation needs to be noticed, and a person normally around running around 150/80 dropping to 90/50 or spiking to 200/98 needs treatment. [/quote]

I realize you don't have all the details, but at that point I was there just for tests and observation. I relalize 10-15 points may be in the acceptable range for a patient, and I was being somewhat facetious anyhow, but as far as I could tell it was 48 straight hours of "precautions" that made me have to go to the bathroom constantly, denied me more than 3 hours of sleep at a time, and generally were administered by people who simply felt they did not have to discuss anything before doing it.



In this case, the incident happened at work and I didn't want to cause issues by refusing any treatment. Not the hospitals fault, but frankly, when I started saying "hey, why do I have another bag of IV fluid", avoiding the discussion altogether by just hooking it up and relying on the fact that I don't know how to safely remove an IV needle myself to keep me in bed and doing things their way is not acceptable. Yeah, yeah, you can "refuse" things, but it's very hard to selectively refuse things. They simply do not want to hear that, especially when they're convinced you're there because you had too many energy drinks, even if the cardiologist says it was a combination of factors and he doesn't know what caused the problem.



Mostly it clarifies for me that the next time I won't go back to that hospital at a minimum.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I wish they HAD told me that, or paid attention when I told them how often I was going to the bathroom. I go a lot when I drink fluids ever since I went to Iraq; somehow that experience set my kidneys in permanent overdrive.

I try to be very nice to nurses at the hospital and at the DRs office, but these ones were really trying my patience by the end of the time there. Especially the charge nurse who couldn't stop saying I had a "incident with an energy drink" even though the DR said it was most likely a combination of many thing. I like nurses, for the most part. Well, yeah, I have a kid that is studying to be one but nurses are usually pretty sweet. I always remember the ER nurse when my mom took me to the hospital when I broke my collarbone playing hockey when I was 16. She was SO CUTE. She was super-tall, prolly over 6 feet and had this long, wavy red hair in a pony tail and looked like she played basketball and worked out and was just super-cool and nice to me. I had an instant crush. It was so obvious that on the way home my mom even asked me if I had a crush on the nurse. I was loopy enough to admit to it. She thought it was cute. That was when I first realized how awesome scrubs really look.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Kirra: Get thee off non-day shifts, and out of ER. You will be much happier in the long run.


Just my 2 cents.

I might be happier on days...true. Just no day shifts available ATM ) I'm keeping my eyes open, though. I'm on 3p-3a shift right now, it's not too bad, actually.

I'm sorry if I gave the wrong impression...I love working in ER! It's fast paced, it's exciting and you never know what is gonna walk through the door. I do get frustrated, sometimes, but coming here and ranting and ranting with my coworkers helps tons ).

I try to find humor in most situations also..I have found if I can laugh at situations, then I don't get irritated as much. I am pretty good at finding humor). There is always something to make me smile. I'm not one of those cranky nurses that hate their jobs. ER is a way better place than ICU was also, ICU was pretty boring.

Plus, the doctors in ER are younger! They are hosting a Christmas Party for staff at Motor City Casino, dinner and drinks included! I've never worked on a unit where the docs did that...in ICU we got a couple boxes of chocolates lol.

This party is going to be fun! They suggest we book a room, so we don't have to drive home too

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

Yikes, DE. Didn't realize they weren't explaining anything if asked. I don't think I'd be wanting to be a patient there either. That hospital may wind up getting crap for payment if they keep doing things that way.

Kirra, that Christmas party sounds like fun!

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Women are from Hoboken, men are from Trenton. ~ Jimmy Kimmel

Yeah, day time hours are generally slower in the ER. Means less trauma and excitement, but also less crap and clinical work. Also less stressful, as you are usually staffed better, since that's when the admin is in house.

As for excitement, yeah, you are in about the most exciting part of nursing I guess. After you age some, though, you are likely to want something a bit less stressful

Nurses I knew loved radiology and endoscopy. ICU nurses had a tough time, and it's not a job I would want. OR is pretty good, but you end up taking call which can be a PITA getting called out at 2am for a 4 hour op, and having to stay for your regular hours after that.

The sweet jobs are those personal nurses at clinics. We have a huge clinic here, and each doc has his nurse. They have it very easy. I knew a few doctor's assistants, but they had to be butt kissers and log hours whenever the surgeon wanted.

You could always get spunky and go get your NP license. Make some very good money doing that! I know a few who got theirs.

If there was no real medical reason to keep his drip running, they could have given him a hep or saline lock and DQ the running drip while maintaining an IV access.

If all else fails, and he knew he wasn't getting any regular meds (pain, or otherwise) he could have had an "accident" and pulled it out Tell them he tripped going to the bathroom, or snagged it on the doorknob.

I liked doing internship at nighttime ERs.

I got in real good with the nurses once by making a food run.

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Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!

I get that, and I'm sure it's often true. The problem, though, is that people in every profession get used to the routine issues that come up for them on a daily basis, but for the client/customer, those routine issues aren't routine; they're unusual and/or urgent problems from their perspective. This is particularly true in the case of medical problems, when the client/customer is a patient that's scared and/or in pain. I think a good professional (again, particularly in the medical profession) should keep that in mind, and recognize that what seems like an unreasonable demand to them is often just a frightened/stressed/pained person looking for reassurance that their issue is being addressed instead of slipping through the cracks.

I mean hell, next time you spend 3 hours waiting at the DMV, while feeling like complete **** because you have a cold, only to be told by the clerk at the window that she can't help you and you'll have to wait until some superior is available to review your file in a couple of hours, see how understanding you are about that DMV clerk "not spending any time" to listen to your story, "not caring" about you, "acting like she's tired and ready to go home," not proactively offering to help with your issue, etc. Remember, that clerk is subject to quotas and per-customer time limits too, and she realistically doesn't have time to be all chummy, right? And lots of people come in demanding unreasonable things that they shouldn't really be at the DMV for in the first place, yes?

So are you being an "incredibly selfish and unreasonable" person if you fill out a feedback form that notes those deficiencies in the service? I say no, you aren't. The DMV clerk has a responsibility to be helpful and pleasant, and the DMV itself has a responsibility to correct systemic problems (e.g. understaffing, poor scheduling, etc.) that lead to unhelpful and unpleasant point-of-contact service. And like I said before, that goes double or triple for the medical profession.

Anyway, having written that, I now feel kind of guilty for pushing back against what I'm sure was just frustrated and entirely justified venting on your part. I have to admit, I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to medical treatment due to some bad experiences with my grandparents (e.g. coming in to visit in the morning and discovering they've been lying in their own excrement for hours, my grandfather lying on a cot in the ER hallway for literally 12 hours while they find a room (which miraculously became available the instant my father, a local TV journalist, showed up), doctors who get pissy if you ask too many questions about the treatment plan that may determine whether you live or die, and so on).

Meh, this is the ER we're talking about. People's lives are hanging in the balance.

If the complaints only rise to the level of the temperature of the blankets and folks having their hands held, I'd say the ER staff is doing a great job.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Checklist:
1. Google Jared Leto
2. Make costume to make myself look like Jared Leto.
3. Figure out which ER Kirra works in. Book trip to said city. (be sure to take Jared Leto costume)
4. Don Jared Leto costume.
5. After researching Kirra's work schedule, cut off left pinky to coincide with her shift in the ER.
6. Admire Kirra in sexy nurse outfit.

It...might work....

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.