All nursing floor - with no nursing assistants???

[JSBoston]

I am going to interview for a nursing job in Boston on a medical floor that is considered "all nursing" and they do not utilize nursing assistants. I was wondering if anyone else works on a floor like that and how do you feel about it? What is the patient load like? Are the other nurses helpful with turns if needed?

Thank you for any feedback!

[JSBoston]

DogWmn... I work with a lot of LPN's on a long term acute floor and we do everything... Vents, PD, tele etc and some of our LPN's have been there for so long because they don't want to go to a nursing home to work, but they are amazing nurses and I'll ask them questions WAY WAY before another RN who's only been around a year or so before I started.

[Lola77]

wow - having worked as a tech on very busy floors and now as a RN on a very busy floor the thought of having 3 patients entirely to myself is GREAT. I LOVE doing tech things - bathing, turning, etc, and that would allow me to really examine the skin and do very thorough assessments plus I would do the vitals and blood sugars myself (I hate trusting CNA's I do not know with this information - I usually double check myself! I am the one giving the insulin and meds!)

I had no idea that hospitals still did that. I have 6 patients on an insanely busy med surg floor and I get so little time with them.

[Jolie, BSN]

My first job out of school was in a primary nursing setting. I didn't know how good it was until we moved and I took a job that involved team nursing on a post-partum unit. Granted, this was an especially bad example of team nursing, because in one shift a patient could possibly interact with an RN, LPN, NA, bath technician, dietary aide, nursery nurse and breastfeeding specialist. It was no wonder that no-one knew the full picture of any patient, and all kinds of things fell thru the cracks, such as fevers, other complications, social issues, etc. It was a nightmare. I didn't last long in that job, and never went back to team nursing again.

But since we have full legal, moral and ethical responsibility for our patient's care, I like to be the one actually providing all of it.

[Batman24]

The ley to your decision should be how many patients you will have under this system. If it is 3 it's fantasic but more than that I'd be leery.

[Music in My Heart]

I would do the vitals and blood sugars myself (I hate trusting CNA's I do not know with this information - I usually double check myself! I am the one giving the insulin and meds!)

Wow, where are you that CNAs are doing blood sugars? That's nurse-only duty in these parts.

[Music in My Heart]

in one shift a patient could possibly interact with an RN, LPN, NA, bath technician, dietary aide, nursery nurse and breastfeeding specialist.

Yikes, Jolie, that's horrifying.

I seriously doubt that it was more cost-effective in practice... though I'm sure it made a beautiful Excel spreadsheet for somebody somewhere up the line.

[S.N. Visit, BSN, RN]

Wow where are you that CNAs are doing blood sugars? That's nurse-only duty in these parts.[/quote']

CNA's in Iowa are allowed to perform blood sugars.

[diane227, LPN, RN]

I absolutely HATE the idea of having no nursing assistants and would not work in that environment.

[solneeshka, BSN, RN]

If they would reduce the patient load? Fine. I can't imagine, though, how it would save costs??

Because the patients get higher quality and more consistent care so they don't have to stay as long and the risk of complications is reduced. Those are both things that the hospital, not insurance, pays for. But it takes management with vision to be able to see that instead of only looking at the bottom HR expense line.

[Bill E. Rubin]

I actually work in such a unit. I wonder if the OP was interviewing to work on my unit. It has its pluses and minuses. It does foster teamwork among the nurses as we are all each other's aides, and the theory is that since we have more time with the pts while assisting with their ADLs, we have more opportunity to assess them. We generally have 3 pts during the days and 4 at nights... We have 25 beds and the target staffing is 10 RNs for the days 7 for nights (though sometimes we have 6 at night).