[CaliNurse]

Hello all Staff Developers !

I found this sight today and have been having the most wonderful time on it.

My name is Cali. I work in California in a long term care facility that is also part of an acute hospital.

My duties are education, infection control, compliance issues, and of course anything else that has been cast to the side or anything else that I discover needs improvement.

I have been doing this for 3 1/2 years now. I really do enjoy it.

I think we should all use this bulletin board to network together and share thoughts, issues, concerns, lessons plans, material, self learning modules, & etc.

If you would like to start our own web ring so to speak then sign in on the roll call.

We can be very valuable to each other. There are many Long Term Care facilities and one of us in each building. Where are my peers?????

Hope to see you soon,

Cali

[vc124]

Hello calinurse. I have been SDC and Restorative Coordinator for approx. 1 year now. I create a % of my own inservices. Of course the compliance issues inservices are created by the company for the most part however, we are able to submit some of our own for our "as needed" and "specific" requirements. I use a lot of our vendors for inservices. They love to talk about their products and provide education with it.
The biggest problem I run into is getting the staff to attend the inservices. With the shortage and the constant revolving door with CNA's I have found it to be a challenge to get them into the inservices. Do you ever have that problem and if so what do you do?
I work in a LTC facility with 120 beds (we run with census around 117 most of the time). We have a lot of admissions and discharges. The company I work for is "for profit" so that should tell you the staffing pattern. Of course I also work for a company that allows only 1 educator per facility.
This is a really neat site to get information and meet other healthcare workers.

[CaliNurse]

Hello vc124,

Thank you for your response. Being new to this bulletin board I was wondering how long it would be before another DSD came to view.

Yes, I am to met with the callenge of getting staff to inservices. There is one technique that I do use. If I see someone sitting as they do time to time I often say "Hey lets do that inservice that you missed."

I keep a 3 ring binder with the missed inservices. When you do one on one it often doesn't take the full hour.

Can I ask you how you schedule the inservices for your night staff?

I do not work on a unit as large as yours. How many CNAs do you have on staff? At the most I have 15. However, my inservicing responsibiilties extend beyond the cna's. Depending on the topic it includes every department that has access to our area (keep in mind I am part of an acute non-profit hospital).

Hope you hear from you soon.

Cali

[jeniousno1]

hello, i am a senior staff nurse and i work at a large hospital in northern ireland. I regularly organise teaching / learning sessions composed of whatever topics the staff want to develop further, i get feed - back from them on what they would like introduced to the unit. I organise sessions for both day and night nursing staff because it needs to meet the needs of all staff and be user friendly. I recently compiled a session on the legal and professional issues of intravenous therapy so that the overseas nurses got the chance to familiarise themselves with Nursing & Midwifery Council legislation which we are duty bound by.
In doing so, promoting research based practice by taking a proactive approach to updating knowledge and skills relating to clinical nursing practice.
" research without practice, is like building castles in the air, practice without research is like building castles on a slippery slope" (Parahoo, 1997).

[renerian]

Hey Cali. I am not in SD capacity now but have been in the past. Hey in your compliance do you find you are in over your head as far as financial issues? I was a compliance officer as well and had to sign on cost reports as to their veracity..I was uncomfortable doing so. Are you in that type of role?

renerian

[betts]

I schedule all Inservices on the last friday before the mondays payday @ 10am and 3pm. Checks are given afterwards in the class to those that attend and demonstrate an understanding of the given inservice.
Overall attendances have been nearly 100% of the staff. We also give quarterly bonuses for attendance.

[CaliNurse]

Hi Betts,

Be careful with the exchange of inservice for paycheck. Are the checks dated for monday or friday? I am curious ... what do you do for the staff that does not attend or pass? I do a lot of one on one to obtain 100%. I find it to be bothersome on some days other days I like it because I can focus specifically towards the student I am with and what I see their weak points are.

I have never worked where they do inservices on paydays. I have heard that if you hold checks until completion of inservices it is against labor laws. I guess that would make sense but I know it is a motivator.

Was it ever handled differently?

I wish we had a budget for quarterly bonuses. That would get them there.

Cali

[CaliNurse]

Hi Renerian,

My compliance issues are infection control, environmental rounds, any policy or procedure that I notice is not being followed, improvement of poor systems, etc.

I survey the unit everytime I walk through it. Once a week I am in everyone's bedside stand. Storage and dating of bedpans, urinals, adl items, hair care, oral care all must be separated. Anything I see wrong with the environment is reported to my DON.

Sometimes it happens that I pull a policy to inservice with and I find out that parts of the policy are no longer valid. I think every hospital needs a P & P committee. Laws and regulations change and it is very hard to keep up with how many policies the changes affect.

Storage of meds is another thing on my list. The med carts which seem to turn into the supply cart.

Once I see something out of sorts usually by an active decision to do so vs. lack of knowledge, then my eyes go there to check for repeat offenders.

It is difficult to summarize everything I monitor. I just about monitor everything except the staffing and scheduling. (Thank God).

In the end we are all part of the same team. I try to do my work in a way the promotes team works and retention of knowledge vs. intimidation.

Thanks for your reply,

Cali

[KATHYF]

Hi! I have been working in staff development for about 10years. I really love it. I think I get the best of everything because I get to keep my skills up, have resident contact, do fun activities etc. Of course it is a lot of work and very time consuming.
I feel very strongly that it is very important to network! A few years ago I started a staff development group in my area. The purpose was to share ideas. It was very successful @ the time. I was unable to give it the time commitment that was involved but I really got a lot from this networking and would like to continue in some way.
Currently I am the working in a 167 bed LTCF. We have 260 employees! There is never a dull moment. Right now I am just trying to wrap up the annual inservices for the year and plan the next calendar. I have just started to publish a newsletter to get more info out to all staff. Any ideas on this would be much appreciated.
I would love to hear from other staff educators.

[Jean Roberson]

Hi, I have been in Staff Dev. positions for many years, at 4 different hosptals in the Chicago area. I come to this BB only once every couple of months, since there wasn't much activity in the last year. For all you newbies, the best resource is NNSDO, as you will see from some of the other message on the board, including my referral to another member today.
If you have specific questions, let me know or email me at work.
Not sure if I should list that address here. I can't come here every week.