5 West Nursing

I wish everyday was JCAHO day.

You might think I’m crazy. Afterall, who wants to be working with someone breathing down your neck? I’ve always wondered what the big deal was when the facility knows JCAHO is coming to town. As far as I know, it should be a day of rejoicing. “Why?”… here’s why…

First of all, everybody is on high alert. You should see the look on their faces… like dear in headlights. For some reason all the “good China” comes out… you know, perfect staffing, linen without holes, trash is picked up and emptied by housekeeping, urinals have labels on them, and you wouldn’t find gum stuck under the overbed table… it’s that clean! The list goes on, and on…

It’s like that old cliche, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play”. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for us, the cat comes about once a year (twice if we’re lucky). That leaves us with about 364 days of “fooling around”, then comes JCAHO day when everything seem to miraculously come in order. The only problem with this is another old cliche, “Practice makes perfect.”

Have you seen an orchestra perform? Flawless! How do you think they achieved such a performance? Practice, practice, practice. I think this should be the same with us in the health care field. We need to practice, practice, practice. It’s hard to practice when you don’t have the stuff you need to practice with… you know, linen, supplies, manpower, etc.

Despite all the hooplah, I’ve never heard of any hospital that’s been shut down by JCAHO. Maybe I’m just too naive. If you do know of one, shoot me a line. I’d like to know the circumstance behind the shutdown. Nevertheless I figured this much… they can’t shut MMC down. Why? Economics… we’re a level 3 trauma center… the only one in the Rio Grande Valley. I don’t think the other hospitals like DHR would like us to shut down either. After all,  who’s gonna take all the “drop ins”? (Which, by the way, is another story!)