NURSING

Bottom line: It’s hard. The current state of our healthcare system is controlled by a scoring system which helps hospitals get reimbursed or paid for the services they offer.

The documentation by the physicians and nurses are how hospitals get paid. Everything must get charted to reimbursed.

This leaves nurses more concerned about making sure everything gets documented and without a doubt takes the nurse away from the patients bedside. With the soaring costs of healthcare, patients deserve better care and more time for nurses at their bedside.

Anyone with a brain cell that’s still firing could easily understand that having nurses interacting with their patients rather than cramming to get on a computer to document will make for happier patients, decreased medical errors, and earlier mobilization by getting patients out of bed.

This in turn would lead to improved patient satisfaction scores, less pressure ulcers, decreased medication errors and earlier interventions to decrease hospital stays. Bottom line: Better care.

I’ve been an RN working in the Intensive Care Unit for over 14 years. All patients deserve the same care we would want for ourselves and our loved ones.