Aretha the patient advocate

Koomba, rn

Please see my answer to workplace violence for more details.1. We need social workers. Or at the very least, nurses need to be trained on how to properly fill out discharge paperwork if there is no social worker available. There are AMA’s that are no longer priority for social workers (groups are) however on the AMA paperwork it says that a house supervisor (who is rarely available) or a social worker also has to assess them. I also have had many scheduled discharges not even discuss discharge planning with a social worker until the day of because they had never seen them. This is unacceptable. There should be a designated social worker for every patient (often when I look for my patients there is no one listed.) when discharge paperwork isn’t done, this can push me back 2-3 hours. It makes everything take longer for the discharge process which makes the patient upset. Also if a patient hasn’t seen a social worker and don’t know what the plans are this can create a lot of anxiety and more ama’s. Patient shave been feeling unheard because no one talks to them about what they really want or need. Nurses can only do so much, social workers know way more than we do when it comes to certain things. Especially when it has to do with discharge.2. Adequate staffing. You need at least 3 staff on the unit for a shift. Especially if you want staff to take their mandatory breaks. There should be at least 2 techs one RN or and RN, lpn and tech. I have had multiple occurances of being unable to take a break because I’m the only one on the floor who can do it or because I’m the only nurse. When you add in discharges, admissions, ama’, detox assessments, med passes and more, one nurse isn’t going to cut it. It is impossible to do 3 nursing jobs at once. One person cannot do the work of 3. We need more staff to do our job safely instead of quickly.3. Quarterly town hall meetings to discuss patient/ staff concerns. Often times it’s hard for me to speak with a manager about concerns I have while I’m at work. I’m usually so busy I barely get to take a break myself. Some concerns also shouldn’t be discussed in a patient area. If we had a town hall meeting or an anonymous box to report concerns we would be able to voice more issues more often. It has been rumored that incident reports have been thrown away before even making it to the CNO. That’s our only way of reporting. There needs to be a better process for turning in incident reports if that’s our only way of reporting problems we are having. And there needs to be follow up so we know someone addressed it.4. Belongings a keep going missing in intake. Techs need to be properly trained5. Techs aren’t being trained enough before hitting the floor. Many don’t know how to safely do daily tasks.Please see other notes

Help moral of all depts together as a whole. We are a mental health facility, yet our own employees and co-workers are struggling to be happy at work. I know that I have heard from many people over the last few months that they would like to see caffeine be added back to our soda machine. like cold tea and root beer.n/a

Melvin, rn/np student

Sarah nurse 1a

Alex, nurse

Jeff, tech acute (2b)

CompensationGreat place

Staff social servicesNone