Nurse here! This keeps popping into my mind, keeps leaving me drawing a blank. Healthcare is a massive and resource-devouring industry, but is stuffed with people who actually give a shit about the people around them: the industry is a good candidate for improvement, and the people in it are likely to actually embrace those improvements (well, barring the odd salty af mofo who loses their shit at the first signs of change, but that person’s in every industry - they’ll figure it out eventually.)
I work in a run-of-the-mill hospital in the US, which encourages staff to take on system improvement projects, and these are were I see potential - especially for new nurses gunning for promotions.
The problem is what and how. All I can think of are things like recycling programs to tackle medical waste, but (at my facility at least) the waste that isn’t already being recycled is either biohazardous or risks becoming biohazardous (like medication waste is huge, but we can’t save half a vial of unused injection due to the possibility of that being contaminated by the first needle that drew from it).
So, looking for project ideas, both that I can start to implement myself, or to suggest to other staff looking to polish their resume. Smaller scale stuff is great for newer nurses; big scale stuff I can throw at management and see what sticks.
Let me know if you think of anything! Thanks all!
That’s called the “milieu” which is just a fancy term for the general vibe of the therapeutic environment.
And yeah, hospitals SUCK at that. They’d never let actual greenery in the units because of their potential to harbor bugs or trigger allergies, but the plain/sterile look of everything makes it feel pretty alien to most patients.
Pediatric hospitals are the only ones that get it right - the walls are colorful and filled with happy imagery; the ceiling lights often have inserts that make them look like little patches of blue sky and clouds.
Idk why hospitals that care for adults always look so damn depressing. That’d be a great project idea, to get some pediatric hospital interior decorators to do their thing in other facilities!