Sit for a Bit
Seat helps YRMC patients and doctors see eye-to-eye
Yuma Regional Medical Center has been quietly adding a piece of furniture to each one of its almost 300 inpatient care rooms over the last year.
It’s a pretty unassuming black adjustable stool, without wheels so it won’t get accidentally banged around by foot traffic in and out of the room.
The eight-pound, $100 ergonomic seats are there specifically for physicians, nurses and other providers to sit next to the patient in the bed, at a comfortable “eye to eye” level.
Each one is marked with a “Sit for a Bit” logo, and are part of what could be the largest such initiative to date, fostering better communication that has benefits for both sides.
Dr. Krishna Nimmagadda, who brought the concept to YRMC, said “it opens up communication, because oftentimes, the patient doesn’t feel like the provider has time to answer a question, if they’re just standing over them. It is a better environment.”
Nimmagadda said positive patient feedback when the stools were first introduced into rooms on the third floor of the hospital’s tower a year ago was “close to 100 percent.
“We’re learning that this is something very important to our patients. It’s not just a reaction to a problem that doesn’t need to solved,” he said.
The simple seating arrangement has been shown to reduce patient anxiety and improve their memories of the conversation later, critical for them to remember details about their condition and instructions on what to do after they’re released, said Erin Brandt, YRMC’s director of patient experience and care advocacy.
The stools were ordered from a couple different manufacturers through Hoppstetter’s Office Products, and cost about $100 each.
Space is at a premium in hospital rooms, especially the doubleoccupancy ones, which have a folding stool to take up as little real estate as possible.
Most of the rooms already have at least one chair, but it’s often occupied by either the patient’s belongings or a visitor, said Brandt.
“This way they don’t have to ask anybody to move out of the way, and many of them aren’t at the right level to see the patient,” she said.
Nimmagadda said adding a “dedicated piece of furniture” for staff in the inpatient rooms has required a considerable amount of teamwork between the hospital’s departments, which often tend to stick to their own lanes when it comes to patient care.
Monica Beltran, director of the third floor of the patient tower, was key to implementing the program during the pilot phase, and said staff members have gotten on board with the program, too.
Providers’ routines are dominated by technology — whether it’s a laptop or a large machine — so anything that allows them to set that aside and relate to patients directly is a welcome change, she said.