[CraigB-RN]

As part of a grant proposal, I'm going to have my rural nurses particapate in the AACN's essentials of critical care orientation. This is a 64 hour online program that I'm planning on supplamenting with orientations and shodow time in ICU's. One of my goals is to improve the staff nurse comfort level in dealing with critical patients

I've got a 16 bed, 2 bed ER Critical Access Hospital that is about 3 hours from the nearest ICU.

Is anyone else out there doing anything like this?

[mattsmom81]

I think the more education you can give, the better...but from my personal experience: all the book knowledge in the world will not help IF your facility does not provide the support, equipment and resources (trained, competent staff included) to PROVIDE critical care. I just left a small hospital that wanted to tout itself as a critical care provider, but didn't want to back up the staff and give them what they needed to do the job. They were more than happy, however, to hire critical care nurses to take on the responsibility. But they did not accept THEIR end of things, which included providing pharmacy coverage, policies and procedures, and adequate care ratios to provide the critical care..