5 things to know about your nursing care
At some point in your life, you or a loved one will end up in the hospital. It may be a short stay for a minor surgery, or a longer visit because of serious injury, illness or disease. Once you are there, it is important to know your surroundings.
Just because you are in a healthcare facility does not mean your safety is guaranteed. According to the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, one in 25 hospital patients has at least one healthcare-associated infection on a given day. Here in Massachusetts, 78 percent of our hospitals last year faced federal penalties for unplanned readmissions of patients, according to state data.
Nurses are highly educated experts monitoring your condition and assessing your response to the various medications and treatments prescribed by your doctor. So when you are admitted to the hospital, it’s important to evaluate your nursing care.
Here are some important considerations when it comes to your nursing care:
Know your RN. Identify your registered nurse. By law, every hospital patient must be assigned an RN and healthcare IDs must indicate who is an RN. There are many people coming and going from your hospital room, but it’s important to know who your nurse is so that you can get accurate answers about your care and your condition.
Ask questions. How many patients does your nurse have assigned to them? How much time do they have with each patient? Research shows that safe patient limits for nurses reduce injuries, medication errors and unplanned re-admissions, and save lives.
Know the law. In Massachusetts, there is a law limiting ICU nurses to one, or at the most two, ICU patients at any one time. This law, passed in 2014, is meant to keep you safe and must be followed at all times by the hospital. Massachusetts also requires hospitals to develop written discharge plans and provide them to Medicare-covered patients at least 24 hours before discharge. Under federal law, you have the right to get a copy of your medical records and the right to keep them private.
Meanwhile, The Patient Safety Act, a law pending on Beacon Hill, would require such limits based on how sick a patient is and the type of hospital unit.
Not just “a nurse.” Nurses are trained in specific areas of health care. A labor and delivery nurse knows how to provide safe, quality care for you and your child. If you are in the intensive care unit (ICU), you want an ICU nurse. Post-anesthesia care nurses provide intensive observation and treatment of patients who have undergone anesthesia.
Get educated. In addition to monitoring your condition and intervening when necessary, your nurse is there to help you care for yourself. Your nurse should have enough time with each patient to provide appropriate education about how to stay safe outside of the hospital and how to continue at-home treatment plans.
Patients entering hospitals today are sicker than in the past and need more acute care. Yet front-line nurses are stretched increasingly thin. Because of this, nurses see excessive medication errors, unnecessary injuries and infections, and even preventable deaths. The best way to stay safe at the hospital is to get informed. Ask questions about your nursing care. Advocate for yourself and your friends and family. When you do end up at the hospital, you’ll be that much safer.
Donna Kelly-Williams is an obstetrical and neonatal registered nurse at Cambridge Hospital and president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, a union founded in 1903 and representing more than 23,000 nurses and healthcare professionals throughout the Commonwealth
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