Can the TSA Teach Us a Lesson in Long-Term Care? It Depends!

By: MacKenzie Kimball July 7th, 2011

Editor’s note: This article was written by guest blogger Anthony Cirillo, FACHE, ABC, a healthcare marketing and experience management expert and expert guide in assisted living for about.com. For more information about the author, please see our About page.

By now you have heard the story of the 95-year-old Hastings, MI woman Lena Reppert, the one she described as “a wee bit embarrassing.” While going through security in a wheelchair, she was taken by a TSA officer in Florida into a glassed-in area where a pat down ensued. They said they felt something suspicious on her leg and they couldn’t determine what it was. Turns out it was her Depends undergarment, which TSA said was “wet and it was firm, and they couldn’t check it thoroughly.” In the end Lena went through security with no underwear.

Turns out mom was much more calm about the situation than her daughter, Jean Weber. During the process, Weber lost her gate pass and was then not allowed to take her mother to the gate. She was sobbing because of what her mother was forced to go through.

“They took excessive measures,” said Weber. And she believes that the TSA needs to change their procedures for people in wheelchairs.

Here is my take. Checklists often trump common sense.

The TSA has rules and regulations. And the undergarment in their mind posed a potential threat given recent history. A rule is a rule is a rule….

However, this was a 95-year-old woman. In a wheelchair. With leukemia.

I think L.A. Times columnist Jonah Goldberg said it best when he wrote that we can’t expect TSA workers to use common sense or discretion if they aren’t trained to do so. The Israelis, he said, have intelligent screeners who are trained to use interviews to inspect people. They aren’t likely to be caught with their hands in someone’s diaper.

In healthcare, checklists, regulations, administrators, corporate, and on and on – all spell out exactly what needs to be done. And so even when an otherwise common sense decision is begging to be made right before your eyes, we have become blind to common sense. I believe that healthcare workers need to revisit and connect with the passion and purpose in which they entered the field. And further they should be given the power to innovate and be empowered to make decisions – yes, even common sense ones. Let’s depend on that.

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Comments

By Kathy Ellard R.N.,DON on July 8th, 2011 at 7:57 am

I can not agree more. I “preach” to the nurses at my facility, that when it comes time to act, or make a decision,they need to fall back to common sense and they need to use their professional judgement.

By Joshua Seu on July 8th, 2011 at 9:15 am

That may sound great and at this moment we all feel that they should have used “common sense”, but 95 year old people can be terrorists too, and the first time they let one through, because “common sense” told them it was okay, and the plane exploded because there was a bomb in the diaper, they would have been crucified for relying on “common sense”, and not following the rules they were given. You can’t win.

By Jerry on July 8th, 2011 at 9:32 am

I think the problem is less about the risk of 95 year old terrorists, and more about the supervisory agencies watching over healthcare facilities. Policies are required, and when not followed, facilities can be cited for not following policy. The issue seems to be that documentation and standardization has trumped individual, patient-centered care… and the ‘authorities’ in healthcare only enforce this practice further.

By Joshua on July 9th, 2011 at 11:05 pm

Yeaaaahhh… I guess you didn’t realize that’s what I was saying, the 95 year old terrorist thing was just an illustration with the TSA in the role of the supervisory agencies you mentioned. The point being that healthcare workers are pushed to do things faster and more economically; so with no overtime, but if they miss something, the offending nurse, CNA, etc., will be fired, as an example, and the facility will get fined, as an example. So it’s like you have to work fast, but you’ve also gotta be accurate, but at the pace some of these nurses have to go with the patient load they’re given, it’s only a matter of time before one of the multitude of rules is missed.

By John on July 18th, 2011 at 8:44 am

Rules and the mighty dollar made healthcare into a health business, the CARE in healthcare is long gone. The pressure for productivity and efficiency to increase profits is getting to be too much for the front line staff. However, when something goes wrong, front line staff is always to blame,even though corporate management is causing all the chaos. But like any other bubble in business, it will burst and then we will see a real crisis where people might end up dying on the streets not being able to afford healthcare. Way to go government and corporate America…