A few years ago, I contracted pneumonia and landed in the hospital for a few days. My nurse and I became fast friends as I asked her a thousand questions about her job. During her nightly rounds, she slipped me extra Jell-O, and we watched “Jeopardy!” together, both of us shouting the answers.
Around 34 million Americans visited a hospital in 2023, according to the American Hospital Association. While your stint in a medical center is never going to be a joy, nurses have intel that can help it go more smoothly.
So I asked nurses who work in hospitals for tips to make your stay safer, easier and more comfortable.
Call, don’t fall.
Falls are “a serious and common risk in hospitals,” said Chantal Howard, chief nursing officer at Duke University Hospital. They occur most frequently near the bedside or in the bathroom, according to one study.
Ian Saludares, a nurse administrator at Mount Sinai Hospital, said that patients can fall out of bed when reaching for their phone or glasses on a table. Often, he added, the patient either feels too self-conscious to ask for help, or ignores feelings of dizziness or weakness. “They’ll say, ‘I’m fine, I can do it myself,’” he said.
Instead, don’t hesitate to use your call button, said Brian Fasolka, a clinical assistant professor at the N.Y.U. Rory Meyers College of Nursing. “We want to assist you,” he added. “Falls are a nurse’s worst nightmare.”
Bring your own pillow.
When Amanda Peterson, a nurse practitioner in St. Paul, Minn., went to the hospital to have two babies, she packed her own pillow.
Ask if you can do the same, Peterson advised. “I have seen too many unspeakable things happen to hospital pillows,” said Peterson, author of “Everybody Just Breathe.” (In one study, researchers examined “disinfected, patient-ready pillows,” and over a third were contaminated with infection-causing pathogens). “Plus, my home pillow is comfier,” Peterson said.
Keep your health information in one place.
Having easy access to all your medical information is crucial for getting good care. (In fact, paramedics have told me it can save your life in an emergency.)
Many hospitals have patient portals that you can consult on your computer or mobile device, said Kara Curry, a senior policy and ethics advisor at the American Nurses Association’s Center for Ethics and Human Rights. You may be able to see lab and test results, communications among members of your health care team and medication, right from your hospital bed.
Make sure your basic info is up-to-date online, or bring paper records with you to the hospital. Gaps in health information can delay care for the patient, Dr. Fasolka added. “I’ve been in the E.R., calling different pharmacies, trying to get a patient’s medication list because they don’t know it,” he said. “Telling me that you take pink pills doesn’t help me.”
Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
Patients can be confused or unsure about their schedules, said Victoria Niederhauser, dean of the College of Nursing at the University of Tennessee. At the beginning of each day, she suggested, ask the nurse, “Can you give me an idea of what my day is going to look like?”
If the nurse seems to be in a rush, ask if there is a good time to go over any issues, Curry added. “The nurse may have more time, for example, after the morning medication round,” she said.
And if you have questions that a doctor or a nurse didn’t answer during rounds, or any requests to make your stay more comfortable, write them down in a notebook so you can remember them, Saludares said.
Pay attention to the discharge instructions.
Be sure to go over the post-care instructions carefully, and ask as many questions as you need to, said Nan Ketcham, a clinical associate professor of nursing at Baylor University. Have a second person there, if possible, to go over the steps so that they’re clear, she added.
Or, if you’re by yourself, you can ask to record the instructions with your phone, Dr. Niederhauser said.
It can be tempting to rush through discharge instructions because you want to go home “and eat something that isn’t hospital food,” Peterson said, but make sure you absorb the information. Patients who ignore discharge advice, she added, “can end right back in the hospital, to the land of plastic pillows and sad salads.”
Ask the nurse about more affordable meds.
If you can’t afford the medication on your discharge instructions, tell your nurse, Ketcham said. A nurse may be able to work with pharmacists to find more affordable options for you or discounts through pharmaceutical companies, she said.
“I can make one little tweak that can make their med that was $250 $2,” Howard added. “There are things we can do, or at least we can investigate,” she said. “So don’t be shy.”
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Jancee Dunn, who writes the weekly Well newsletter for The Times, has covered health and science for more than 20 years.
The post Nurses Share Insider Tips for Your Next Hospital Visit appeared first on New York Times.
