Hospital Administrative Staff Research Articles

Two Views of the Fountain Valley Program

SAlthough the Community Services Program is basically a part of the regular curriculum offerings at Fountain Valley High School, this is no ordinary high school class. At the same time it epitomizes all of the goals embodied in the true educational experience-skills development, knowledge of self, recognition of individual worth, opportunity for meaningful service, vocational investigation, and a real-life situation. SThe clients in the Sensory Development Program are severely and profoundly retarded in addition to their handicap of blindness or impaired vision. Each requires an ongoing close relationship with another person to aid him in learning to relate to his environment. Under the direction of their supervisory teacher, Gene Flory, the Fountain Valley High School students have assisted program staff in providing this much-needed one-to-one relationship with our clients in a consistent, dedicated, and motivating way. Learning stations have been established by the students that have enabled the clients to more readily achieve their educational objectives, and they have also made it possible to increase, from 20 to more than 90, the number of clients who participate in this training. Our program staff report that as a result of the involvement of the students, the attention span of the clients has greatly increased, they are happier and more at ease in their environment, and they relate better on an individual basis. We look forward to continuing for many years to come this very beneficial and mutually satisfying relationship.S It has been the students, under the direction of compassionate and perceptive instructors and working with a most cooperative and insightful hospital administrative staff, who have seized an opportunity and literally exploded it into a beautiful human experience that has touched significantly the lives of everyone involved. The students have brought a meaning of love and joy to other young people that could never have been written into any curriculum guideline. In turn, they have discovered themselves to be worthwhile, creative, caring people, and thus enhanced their own self-image beyond all expectations. Because they are so caught up in the experience at the hospital, the students have extended their personal involvement with the young people at the hospital literally thousands of hours beyond their regular class-time obligation so that the program has become an integral part of their lives.5

The need for mock major accidents

In the United States of America, the authorities consider it necessary to enact mock accidents, and in the absence of a natural major accident or disaster, at least one mock accident per year must be staged by a hospital in order to retain its accreditation. In the United Kingdom mock accidents are not considered to be so necessary for the following reasons: they are expensive; although good practice is provided for ambulance staff, firemen, police and hospital administrative staff, mock accidents do not produce any intensity of medical problems because no one has been hurt; during a mock accident many members of the hospital staff are taken away from their normal duties, and genuine patients may suffer. Mock accidents well carried out and recorded are instructive, and films such as the one made in Nottingham entitled ‘Major Disaster A Planned Response’ should be seen and discussed by everyone concerned with major accidents and disasters. Regular discussion should be held about procedure amongst hospital staff and with the ambulance personnel and police. Much can be learned from the reports given about the many major accidents and disasters that have occurred in England and Ireland. In every accident and emergency unit the equipment should be checked and the staff briefed at regular intervals.

THE NURSING CRISIS IN HOSPITALS

The manpower shortage Is becoming desperate within the nursing profession. More hospital beds or wards will have to be closed if urgent remedies are not found. The generation gap between trainees and matrons must be overcome by appointing more nurse counsellors to hospital administrative staffs. Much higher salaries and greater spread of the work load at administrative levels require urgent attention. Doctors should inquire into staff problems In each hospital and offer wholehearted support for changes. Without urgent action, more nurses will resign, and the workload will rest more heavily upon already overburdened shoulders. Without radical changes more patients will be denied adequate care, and some may even die.

Progressive patient care. A preliminary report.

Increasingly frequent complaints in a 187-bed community hospital led to drastic reorganization of services on the basis of the amount of nursing care needed by the individual patients. Three units were developed at first: (1) special care unit for the seriously ill, (2) intermediate care unit, and (3) self-service unit for those able to answer their own bodily needs. Later a (4) continuation care unit, restoration-oriented, was developed for patients with such conditions as hemiplegia and cancer. In order to effect such changes it is necessary to involve the hospital trustees, administration, nurses, and medical staff from the beginning. The plan is referred to as progressive patient care. It must be kept flexible. Systematic comparisons with 17 other hospitals showed that it has substantial advantages as to the number of employees needed per hospital bed, the total patient cost per day, and the wages and salaries that can be paid to hospital personnel.

The Hospital Administrative Staff College

The Hospital Administrative Staff College