When you're up against a timeline and every step, every delay is another minute lost, it's easy to do the things you swore you'd never do. One starts to think about one's tasks in terms of getting all the boxes checked, all the paperwork done before an hour after the shift is over. The focus shifts so easily from the overall patient goals to merely completing the treatments that you are responsible for.
As I learn to become more efficient in my nursing, I adopt timesaving methods and actions. But one must be careful not to trade time for safety.
When I identify areas where I am tempted to act sloppily or unsafely in order to save time, I have a choice to make. Either I can allow myself to continue, or I can deliberately decide to take the longer, correct route. Even if it would make no difference in the initial situation, the choice I make lays the foundation for a habit.
These choices can regard small, relatively insignificant areas, or interventions so significant that I am terrified that I even considered the "easy" route out.
Example: I am hanging an IVPB antibiotic and accidentally touch the sterile spike to my gloved hand. Did I actually think about not getting new tubing and starting over? Of course, I go back and get new tubing rather than risk contaminating an intravenous infusion, but what if I hadn't consciously decided to value safety over time?
Any number of similar scenarios of varying importance exist; Patient needs immediate transfer to commode - no gait belt in room. Foley insertion - sterile field broken mid insertion. End of shift documentation, treatment record indicates lotion application for this shift. You didn't do it but the NA probably did - do you sign?
As an RN student, one tends to underestimate the commitment to one's patients necessary to maintain integrity in a hectic nursing floor shift. In my current position as a staff RN, it is only my conscience and a dedication to optimal outcomes for my patients that prevents me from taking shortcuts that have potential to harm either my patients or my integrity. I am deliberately forming the habits I want to define my career; I want to take the extra time to ensure that I help and do not harm.
