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Readers Discuss: the Business of Nursing
R
aymond Bingham’s model of nursing care may work for him, but it didn’t work for me when my son was born with primary esophageal atresia in 1992. In those days, concerns about residents not washing their hands, eight-hour delays in the initiation of antibiotics for presumed sepsis, being lockedout during shift report, and a plan of care that did not consistently result in oral stimulation during G-tube feeds were not welcomed. In fact, they were not heard.
118
Nursing for Women’s Health
Volume 11
Issue 2
Voicing concerns, filing complaints and attending care conferences resulted in no practical benefit because the deficits I regularly observed were so much a part of the system that there was simply no one—no authority, no official—who could effect change. The 1999 Institute of Medicine Report, To Err is Human—which suggested that thousands of patients were harmed by medical errors each year—could only have surprised individuals who had no firsthand experience with the health care system. Over the years, I’ve come to see the professionals who cared for my son as good people working in a bad system. But at the time, I could only see them as captors, and I saw my family as hostages, not patients. No approach to solving the complex challenges facing our health care system will be flawless, and unchecked capitalism is not the ultimate panacea. But Mr. Bingham throws the baby out with bath water when he ignores the power that the business model affords consumers and the power that consumers have to effect change. Instead of fixating on the immaturity of a novice health care consultant, Mr. Bingham might better reflect on the power of patient satisfaction questionnaires that ask, “Did your health care providers wash their hands?” or how comparative infection control outcome data might influence a buying group’s decision to endorse one institution over another. Florence Nightingale was successful because she knew what counted, and she knew how to count it. Nurses are poorly served in a business model only when we insist on being recognized for how we feel, instead of what we do. Barbara L. Olson, RNC, BSN Grayson, GA
Nurses are poorly served in a business model only when we insist on being recognized for how we feel, instead of what we do.
April | May 2007
Nursing for Women’s Health
119
aymond Bingham’s model of nursing care may work for him, but it didn’t work for me when my son was born with primary esophageal atresia in 1992. In those days, concerns about residents not washing their hands, eight-hour delays in the initiation of antibiotics for presumed sepsis, being lockedout during shift report, and a plan of care that did not consistently result in oral stimulation during G-tube feeds were not welcomed. In fact, they were not heard.
118
Nursing for Women’s Health
Volume 11
Issue 2
Voicing concerns, filing complaints and attending care conferences resulted in no practical benefit because the deficits I regularly observed were so much a part of the system that there was simply no one—no authority, no official—who could effect change. The 1999 Institute of Medicine Report, To Err is Human—which suggested that thousands of patients were harmed by medical errors each year—could only have surprised individuals who had no firsthand experience with the health care system. Over the years, I’ve come to see the professionals who cared for my son as good people working in a bad system. But at the time, I could only see them as captors, and I saw my family as hostages, not patients. No approach to solving the complex challenges facing our health care system will be flawless, and unchecked capitalism is not the ultimate panacea. But Mr. Bingham throws the baby out with bath water when he ignores the power that the business model affords consumers and the power that consumers have to effect change. Instead of fixating on the immaturity of a novice health care consultant, Mr. Bingham might better reflect on the power of patient satisfaction questionnaires that ask, “Did your health care providers wash their hands?” or how comparative infection control outcome data might influence a buying group’s decision to endorse one institution over another. Florence Nightingale was successful because she knew what counted, and she knew how to count it. Nurses are poorly served in a business model only when we insist on being recognized for how we feel, instead of what we do. Barbara L. Olson, RNC, BSN Grayson, GA
Nurses are poorly served in a business model only when we insist on being recognized for how we feel, instead of what we do.
April | May 2007
Nursing for Women’s Health
119