Evaluating Travelers/Contract Nurses

SnowieRN · Sep 1, 2003

Do you mean your hospital is having you turn in eval for them AND the agency is having you send evals?

Tweety, BSN, RN · Sep 1, 2003

Originally posted by SnowieRN
Do you mean your hospital is having you turn in eval for them AND the agency is having you send evals?

Some agencies have us do an eval and send it to them as a way for them to monitor their employees.

So yes, we have to do those evals, plus an the other evaluation. The same eval we give our own employees annually. Seems silly since they are only there for six months max.

ratchit · Sep 1, 2003

I travelled for years and never had a hospital eval. There was a simple checklist that was filled out by a manager or charge nurse for the company. It had a space for comments, but nothing like a staff eval.

Most of my staff evals focused on my clinical and professional progress- new skills, leadership, etc. Not the focus for a traveller.

I can believe that the hospital needs to have some sort of eval on file, but a copy of the agency one has always been good enough.

Good grief.

purplemania, BSN, RN · Sep 1, 2003

I agree the nurse manager should make comments for the benefit of HR to know whether or not this person was employable next year, etc. but a full eval is a waste of your time, IMHO

live4today, RN · Sep 1, 2003

When I worked as a traveling nurse, evals were not done on me...at least not to my knowledge anyway.

In a way, I wish I had received evals because every place of employment wants to know how each nurse did when working prior to coming to their facility to work.

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Sep 1, 2003

Some hospitals require an eval from a recent assignment (NYU contracts are one)...but as I have never seen mine...I don't know much about them

Brownms46 · Sep 1, 2003

The agencies I have worked for request evals on their travelers on every assisgnment, And those travelers I talk to, request evals from the units their on, for references in the future. Many agencies will do an eval on a nurse after she/he completes an assignment, especially if they care about the level of competence of the travelers their putting out there. And even if they don't tell the nurse's their doing this.

I'm sorry 3rdshiftguy, but I think a full assessment of a traveler/contract person is a very necessary tool for the hospital, the agency, and the nurse. At least as it relates to, competence, dependability, ability to interact well with peers, and team members, I have run into some real nuts doing travel, and two of them were working with the same agency I was.

renerian, BSN, RN · Sep 1, 2003

Seems silly to do a hospital evaluation as they are not your employee. I can see doing an agency one.

renerian

SmilingBluEyes · Sep 1, 2003

We have to do evals on a specific form designed for this purpose by our hospital. A copy is kept with supervision (HR I think) and the other goes to the agency for whom the nurse works.

Jay Levan · Sep 1, 2003

These tasks are the direct result of a person or persons, justifying their position by heaping more paperwork on someone else, in order to show that they are "Working" within their job description. Most hospitals, use the check-off form that is mentioned in one of the responses here. Having done Travel assignments for many years, I was never exposed to this type formal evaluation, just the check-off form. In light of the fact you mentioned, as to how long these nurses are allowed to help your hospital's short staffing, it is pointless to do a formal eval since these nurses will no longer be there to make any improvements in their performance at your facility.

It will be of service to the travelers as they work at other facilities.:chuckle

Tweety, BSN, RN · Sep 2, 2003

Thanks for your input everyone. I thought maybe I was being unreasonable.

The worst part of it is the "plan" and "goals" and I must come up with. I'm evaluating someone whose six month contract is up in a couple of weeks. It's retarded.