October 10th, 2009 by Emergiblog in Better Health Network, News, True Stories
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All I could think of when I saw this photo was Gordon Ramsay screaming that the Cream of Wheat was lumpy.
But she’s smiling, so this can’t be Hell’s Kitchen.
It’s more like pot-luck-in-the-break-room.
Cherry Ames got in trouble for “sampling bread and butter” in the ward kitchen, which was apparently against the rules back in the day.
Now you can come into my department and have a four-course meal laid out on the table, which is great for morale but bad for those of us babes with too much “back”.
And when it really does look like “Hell’s Kitchen” in the ER, nothing boosts your serotonin like a big, chocolate brownie, or nacho cheese Doritos!
Sometimes it feels like my shift is one big exercise of will power, and I usually poop out by by 0300. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Emergiblog*
October 9th, 2009 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Better Health Network, Health Tips
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In April I co-authored, Swine Flu Vs. Soap: Our bet’s on the soap! with pediatrician, Dr. Gwenn O’Keefe, founder of Pediatricsnow. We gave a brief overview about the swine flu H1N1 and discussed preventative measures.
While the information remains the same in our post, I’d like to now add a little info about the the H1N1 flu vaccine.
Health information about H1N1 is circulating the web faster than tweets zip through cyberspace and it can be very confusing.
It’s like you’re stuck in a maze and you don’t know which way to go to get out. Information about the swine flu is circulating so quickly that it can even be frightening. It’s really important that you don’t panic.
Gather your information and talk with you doctors and nurses.
Information about the H1N1 flu vaccine Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
October 4th, 2009 by CodeBlog in Better Health Network, News
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When University of Louisville nursing student Nina Yoder blogged about her experience watching a patient give birth in a post entitled “How I Witnessed the Miracle of Life,” she may have thought she was just blowing off some steam. Well her school saw things very differently.
When school officials read Yoder’s post, which included a description of the baby as a “creep” and “a wrinkly, bluish creature, all Picasso-like and weird, ugly as hell, covered in god knows what, screeching and waving its tentacles in the air,” they moved to expel her from school by calling her into an office, searching her for weapons (apparently because Yoder had separately blogged about her support for the Second Amendment), and informing her she was no longer enrolled at the school. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at code blog - tales of a nurse*
September 29th, 2009 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Better Health Network, Health Tips
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This post isn’t being written to frighten you or to cause you to mistrust hospitals.
It’s to make you aware that medical errors do occur, but there are steps that you can take to help prevent medical errors from happening.
First, some vital information
According to a recent investigation by the Hearst Corporation, a staggering 200,000 Americans will die each year from preventable medical errors and hospital infections. This report comes ten years after the highly-publicized report, “To Err Is Human” which found 98,000 Americans were dying each year of medical errors. Instead of the number of medical errors decreasing, it nearly doubled.
Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
September 25th, 2009 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Humor, Opinion
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Over the last several weeks I have received numerous emails dictating the enforcement of work place rules regarding eating and drinking in nursing areas and other areas with patient charts. It seems everyone, from the Chief of Staff to the CEO to the Head Nurse In Charge has been making it very clear that drinking in work areas won’t be tolerated. I have at times been confronted by dutiful staff doing their jobs with a robust sense of confidence to enforce this potentially dangerous patient safety issue.
Or so I thought. Whilst speaking with one of Happy’s friendly colleagues, I learned that the issue of food and drink in the work place has nothing to do with patient safety. Like my colleague stated so eloquently, if there is data that can be presented to me that shows my action of drinking coffee at the work stations would some how harm my patient, I will gladly stop immediately. Discussion finished.
But as I learned from my colleague, the issue of food and drink at the nurse’s station or anywhere near patient charts has nothing to do with patient safety. In fact, the regulations are in place to protect ME from myself.
That’s right, the coffee Nazis are cruising the halls with reckless abandonment searching for violators of the hospital wide coffee ban on rounds not because patients could be harmed, but because I could harm myself.
You see, it turns out my distinguished colleague was told these regulations were not CMS or JCAHO regulations, but rather OSHA regulations.
So I looked it up
“OSHA does not have a general prohibition against the consumption of beverages at hospital nursing stations. However, OSHA’s bloodborne pathogens standard prohibits the consumption of food and drink in areas in which work involving exposure or potential exposure to blood or other potentially infectious material takes place, or where the potential for contamination of work surfaces exists 29 CFR 1910.1030(d)(2)(ix). Also, under 29 CFR 1910.141(g)(2), employees shall not be allowed to consume food or beverages in any area exposed to a toxic material. While you state that beverages at the nursing station might have a lid or cover, the container may also become contaminated, resulting in unsuspected contamination of the hands.
Here are the actual OSHA regulations
1910.1030(d)(2)(ix)
Eating, drinking, smoking, applying cosmetics or lip balm, and handling contact lenses are prohibited in work areas where there is a reasonable likelihood of occupational exposure.
1910.141(g)(2)
Eating and drinking areas. No employee shall be allowed to consume food or beverages in a toilet room nor in any area exposed to a toxic material.
In other words this is not a patient safety issue, but rather an employee safety issue. The Joint Commission has no specific standard on the issue other than for hospitals to comply with OSHA regulations.
So with that in mind, I have two comments regarding the issue:
- As a private practice physician who is not employed by the hospital, I would suggest that these OSHA rules do not apply to me and therefore the hospital risks no retribution for noncompliance from the accreditation arm of the Joint Commission, which is why I suspect the issue comes center stage for hospitals everywhere. If necessary, I will gladly sign a waiver to relinquish my rights to compensation should I ever contract a blood born pathogen or other communicable disease from drinking my coffee.
- If the hospital believes this is a patient safety issue and wishes to make their regulations stronger than those of OSHA and apply them to ALL people in areas with patient pathogens, I will gladly relinquish my daily fluids when I am shown the data regarding patient harm AND the hospital also bans all patient guests from bringing food or drink into the patient’s room. If this is a patient safety issue, it must apply to everyone should they wish to make their rules stronger than OSHA guidelines.
Until this is resolved with rational thought, perhaps over a round of coffee, I’m going to carry one of these around:
It always seems to work for patients.
*This blog post was originally published at A Happy Hospitalist*
