Hospital Abuse

Ambulance Driver was causing a stir over nursing homes again. I believe it was Grunt Doc’s post he referred us to that got one nurse’s dander up. Well, I don’t think anyone is perfect, but this poor nurse was looking for excuses to blame everyone but the nursing home for the problem that was mentioned. The doc had posted about a nursing home that transferred patients to the ER with altered documentation. In particular, medication administration records in which the times of administration had been intentionally left off. This nurse, after admitting this was a common practice in some institutions, then tried to lay the blame on EMS for losing the documentation.

Say what???

Then she stepped in it a little deeper when she said that the hospital didn’t need documentation that could later be used to cause grief for the nursing home. First, I seriously doubt hospital docs and nurses have the time to sit around and peruse nursing home documents, looking for every little error. Second, the doc probably just wanted to know if the patient had taken the latest dose or two of medication and a quick glance at the document, that should have been there, would have done it. Third, that document wouldn’t come back to haunt the nursing home if the medication had been properly administered, or not, and documented. So what’s the problem?

Anyway, just to show I am not completely biased against nursing homes, I wanted to tell you a story I read about hospitals and patient care:

A sweet grandmother telephoned Mount Sinai Hospital. She timidly asked, "Is it possible to speak to someone who can tell me how a patient is doing?" The operator said, "I'll be glad to help, Dear. What's the name and room number?" The grandmother in her weak tremulous voice said, "Holly Finkel, room 302."

The Operator replied, "Let me check. Oh, good news. Her records say that Holly is doing very well. Her blood pressure is fine; her blood work just came back as normal and her physician, Dr. Cohen, has scheduled her to be discharged Tuesday."

The Grandmother said, "Thank you. That's wonderful! I was so worried! God bless you for the good news." The operator replied, "You're more than welcome. Is Holly your daughter?" The Grandmother said, "No, I'm Holly Finkel in 302. No one tells me shit.”

Flo