A study to assess nurse call response monitoring – proximity a contributing factor

Introduction: Patient call bell generated from the patient room is an alert sign to the health care professionals about patient need. Attending a call bell by nurse should be immediate and if it delays safety and emergency intervention required can be at stake. Many a time patient call bell response delayed is directly proportional to patient satisfaction and patient outcome. Call bell is a communication key for the patient when hospitalized and nurse should always give priority to attend call bell. Aims & Objectives: The primary aim of the study is to identify the time taken by nurse to attend the call bell. The secondary objective is infrastructure contribution to minimize the time duration for attending the call bell. Methodology: A total of 16543 call bells were monitored by call bell monitoring system for 3 months from June to August 2018. The call bells were monitored for 2 floor which were 9th floor and 10th floor. Each floor is of 18 rooms and two nursing counter to each floor thus 9rooms to each nursing counter. The call bells respond time duration was monitored for each of the call generated by patient in Dr L H Hiranandani Hospital, Powai, Mumbai, India. Result: 36 rooms were monitored for 3 months for the patient call bell response by nurse. Each floor is of 18 rooms and distance was taken from the nursing counter. The highest distance is room no 9001 and 1001 that is 82 feet and nearest room are 913 and 1013 which is 35 feet. Total of 16543 calls were generated in 3 months from all rooms. 94.88% of total calls were attended by nurse in 1 minute, 3.65% calls were attended in 2 minutes, 0.88% calls were attended in 3minutes, 0.27% of calls were attended in 4 minutes where as 0.12% of calls were attended in 5 minutes and only 0.18% of call were attended in more than 5 minutes. The study has proved that nurses are active and alert to address the call bell and infrastructure of the hospital is one of the factor to minimize the time duration for call bell response. Conclusion: Call bell is the primary key for patient to communicate in the hospital and responding to call bell generated by patient is also priority of nurse. The study has proved that 94.88% of calls were attended with in 1 minute which evidenced nurses priority for attending the call bell. Infrastructure of the hospital helped the nurses to attend the call in minimum time. Call bell response by nurses in minimum time remains our primary goal.