[Caseyrnbsn]

I work in a community hospital with a pediatric dept. next to their OB dept. We take all kids any post-partum overflow ( which is very rare) and any and all adults when we have open beds. How are your Peds. dept. being staffed and what other patients do you recieve when pediatric census drops? Any and all replies will be greatly appreciated. Please though let me know your staffing policies. Thanks Karen.

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Hello. We have a Pediatric Unit that we also admit other types of patients when the census requires. What we primarily admit to our Pediatric Unit are young adults (18-35), OB patients that have had simple procedures (D/C, Tubals), and simple medical problems, that are non-infectious. If we have several adult patients on the unit, we will pull from the med/surg units to have a nurse that cares for these types of patients work on the unit. Our Ped/OB nurses are cross trained (ped nurses do not work in the LDR). It seems to work out very well. We also have a float pool of nursing staff that vol to work in OB/Peds and have completed competency testing to work in those areas. Any float nurse, not normally assigned to the OB/Ped units are never given the more complex patients.

[juliekrn]

I work in a fairly large community hospital. We have peds patients and when we have a low census we do women's health and post partum overflow. We are about to move to a new unit that will now include short stays. This includes pacu phase II, and extended care, observation patients. I believe we will also be doing infusion therapy. I'll let you know how it goes! Our current rn/pt ratio is 3-6 with 1 or 2 techs. This will change when we move to the new unit.

[purplemania]

Our pedi dept. takes adults too, when pedi census is low. Policy excludes addicts, alcoholics, psych pts. or anyone who might end up as a "screamer". We don't do adult telemetry or anyone with MRSA/VRE/C.diff (may spread to babies). When census is low house-wide nurses have option to "float" to any other floor that needs help or take the day off without pay or use a vacation day. we are not obligated to mandatory floats outside our dept (nursery,pedi,post-partum and L&D. These policies seem reasonable to us. All pedi nurses are RNs. We may use float LPN's to care for adults. Please post what your dept. decides to do so we may learn from that.

[rednightingale]

Our Peds floor receives all children under 18 and when low census for pediatrics occurs we generally get abdominal pain, OB overflow (rare), ENT and one day surgery patients that need admission (choley's, appys,) Also we have two surgeons that insist we get their patients (usually abdominal surgery and trachs).

[rck213]

We get whatever the supervisor thinks is "appropriate" which can be just about anything they can't find room for elsewhere. We routinely get angiogram patients, cardiac cath patients, pre- procedure and for recovery. We have had them place MRSA and VRE on our unit without letting us know beforehand. We have managed to insist these patients be taken off the floor but they keep trying. We have had geriatrics with frac hips, CVA's, GI bleeds, and the adult post ops, which is what we feel more comfortable in taking care of.
We are a 16 bed unit staffed for 8 patients and don't always get more help for more census, no float pool, short staffing throughout facility and we are losing nurses like crazy. Administration feels all the nurses should be "generalists" able to work anywhere in the hospital, that just doesn't fly and we don't retain. They just don't get it. And they do not understand how we can be wildly busy with just 6 pediatric patients!!!!!!!
Staff: ( on paper, not in reality)
3 RN , 1 NA, 1 secretary 7-3, our nurse manager position was just obliterated, a nursery nurse manager will now cover our unit.

2 RN, 2 NA, sometimes 1/2 shift secretary
on 3-11

2 RN, sometimes 1 NA on 11-7
And they LOVE to pull from us, if unit down must float, cannot take day off, yet when census up expect all part timers to work more, have even threatened to not allow summer vacation if won't work extra.

[Reabock]

Our "peds unit" is wherever there is room on our med surg/peds unit, used to be 2 units with a connecting hall, but combined into one a couple of years ago because of "low census" Several years ago we actually had a Peds unit, but when we remodeled and added on to the facility in the early 1990's it was combined with the adult unit. It is not the best situation and at times could be unsafe because of the way the floor is laid out and staffed, but we do the very best we can with limited staff. There are only 3 RN's on 3-11 that do peds and only 1 is assigned as Peds nurse on each shift regardless of peds pt load (0-6).

[mommylpn]

I work on a floor that is divided with half Surgical &Trauma, and the other half Peds. We have a policy on not getting loud pts, or pts. with psych history,alcohol abuse, or anyone that could be a threat to a child. But when beds are tight.....which happens VERY frequently, they put pts. wherever there is an available bed! we are also not to put pediatric pts. between adult pts. and vice versa, but "when beds are tight " you have to give them up wherever they are! Just the other day, we had a 54y/o in a semi-private with a 17y/o. How appropriate is that???? We have also had to give up the last peds. bed for adult admissions with the quote from hospital supervisors saying "If we get a Peds. admission, we'll worry about it then!" We've also had to move adults to other floors at 3:00 am to make room for pediatric admissions!

[nurs4kids]

We're all peds, so all we get is peds!

[kidsnurse]

I work on a peds unit which is also a med/surg unit. We get all the ENTs and Urologies too. When peds is low, we have all adults. Sometimes we get OB overflow (post partems) We occasionally get on call (not low census). I get pulled to the ED alot, which I don't mind. Broadens my horizons.