Does Your Unit Director Do This?

OMG!!! WHAT A B****!!!! Can't say much more, too angry...want to strangle. You have my sympathies. Will think of a smart a** remark to say (or think) next time...

Customer Satisfaction important but how about safe staffing? At my hospital if we have 28 pts then we have 4 RN's and 2 or 3 NA's on nights. August 27th they are limiting our census to only 24 pts. Our max is 30 but we are so short of RN's on my unit a medical/telemetry/respiratory unit that the management has decided to limit beds. I can't wait! No more mandation! For a while anyway.

Did you fill out an Assignment despite Objection form? This sound very dangerous. How can you answer a pt's bell when all the staff is tied up? I'd be VERY angry with this manager. She needs to take a walk in a staff nurses shoes just one time! I feel for you because I used to work in a facility like that and had a head nurse who was just as a$$inine as yours sounds.

Good Luck!

Kelly

I think you should fight fire with fire. I'm assuming you want some ways to make your situation better, and get her off your back? If not, don't read the rest of this!

Whenever you can't get to a call light quickly because you're passing meds, whenever you are late passing meds because of an admission, in other words, whenever you are in a situation that she might get a complaint about (actually it sounds like she's out there looking for them), where the institutions goals of customer service are being compromised because there are not enough staff to do the job, keep track--you could use a little notebook you can keep in your pocket, write just enough down to jog your memory, you may then have to transfer the info to an expanded format after shift. Then, when she comes back to you, you are prepared-- you may even have more than she does if I'm reading the situation right. Then approach it in a constructive manner, i.e., "You are so right, Ms A*s*o*e, how do YOU think we can resolve these problems? The entire night shift is very anxious to have the patients get the best care possible, but we need management's help to acheive these goals."

You might even invite her to join you one night @ what should be a relatively quiet time in order to have a "brainstorming" session.

With ANY luck, if you come back to her with info that might turn into justification for more staffing, you might just get it!!

Don't forget, she has a supervisor, too. Try to find out how they set up the staffing ratios for days, pms, and nights. Do they have a genuine rubrick to compute staffing, or ??? How many hours per pat day are alloted to your unit? These factors influence who they decide to staff you?

Is there any sort of acuity system? If not, look into some--try searching on the web, also the journal called Nursing Management (hmm...they may have changed their name.) Anyway, if you can, do some sort of lit search for acuity systems. The reason I'm suggesting this? It may be that no one has looked at the acuity on your unit.

If she just wants to be a pain and make life miserable, she won't work with you on this; If she TRULY wants "customer satisfaction", aka good patient care, she will go out of her way to foster teamwork and problem-solving.

If something comes back to haunt you @ eval time, your handy dandy documentation notebook will be of immense help. On the other hand, showing this kind of leadership and effort may also pay off.

I know at my hospital, they don't take acuity into consideration when they do staffing. All they are concerned about is the number of pt's on the floor, not how much care is required for each patient.

I agree with prmenrs's suggestion. Carry that little notebook with you and take your suggestions to you unit director.

Good Luck!

hi
I think that's ridiculous--no wonder we all have to get malpractice insurance--we're not god......I work in LTC--same thing--and they throw in a picc line--an MVA 45 yr old--along with your elderly---what the hell-----I'm joining the navy to learn more------see what I can do. Has no one seen my post on the answer to shortage--can't seem to find it------?

Your post sounds so familiar to me. And those of the others as well.

I really liked the notebook suggestion. I know that it is a pain in the tushy to do that, but you may very well be protecting yourself in the long run.

Not that this will make life easier for the others on your floor, but if there is a choice, you could try transferring to another ward. Or you can also note how some of the other wards in your facility are being managed. It seems that in some hospitals, continuity of management is NOT practiced from one floor to the other. This might be a great note to drop into the suggestion box.

The post about acuity was great. I am amazed to find out that not all hospitals practice this method of staffing or the other with the grid. I guess I was pretty naive.

I have had head nurse's come to work on a shift, especially if there have been numberous complaints, or because there was no one who could do the overtime for what ever reason. Or there is the old, "we on days must help cover staffing on nights until another nurse is hired" fix.

I can really appreciate how angry this must make you feel. I would be talking to myself all night long if I knew that I was to face such abuse from the head nurse in the morning. Wow!

Sirens: Haven't seen you for awhile. Now I know why. Your staffing STINKS!!! Maybe it's time for you to move elsewhere. It's not humanly possible to take care of that many patients with any safety nevermind customer satisfaction. I'm not a very patient person and sometimes not wise, but I think I would tell that supervisor if she wants to know what's happening, she needs to follow you around and not waste your precious sleep time with her investigations. What a nightmare! Keep in touch (in your spare time.)

INVITE HER TO WORK A NIGHT SHIFT ON YOUR UNIT. I BET HER ANTICS WOULD STOP. AMAZING ISN"T IT HOW THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW THE SCORE GET PUT IN CHARGE!!!!!!!!