Unit Secretaries

Nurses General Nursing

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Have any of your units eliminated secretaries since the introduction of EMR? When I first started as a nurse we were still largely using paper charting and just introducing computers. Unit secretaries were busy entering orders, faxing orders to pharmacy, making sure charts were complete and in order, thinning charts and taking trips to medical records. Now this is all done on computer. The providers enter their own orders and pharmacy automatically sees them on their end. Notes are typed on the computer and there are no charts to thin. All records are scanned into the computer, so no reason to go to medical records. The secretaries come in handy when we have an admit or discharge. Our length of stay is several weeks, so discharges are rare and admits happen maybe 4-5x per week. They also order supplies as needed- as far as I can tell this takes about an hour per week. We have a unit secretary 7am-11pm Monday-Friday. This just seems way excessive for what they do. We handle admissions without a secretary just fine at night and on weekends.

I am not one to complain about extra help, but in an age where they're cutting costs right and left, I feel like the money is better spent elsewhere. Some of the secretaries who have been there forever make more money than new grad nurses. They all make more money than our aids, who are busy all day everyday. Further, the constant member of our staff not doing any work is distracting. The secretaries often want to sit back and talk and we just don't have time for it. The last time I worked I watched our secretary have an hour personal phone call, take three breaks, and have a friend come visit for over an hour. My manager said something about the friend visit, and she just said she was still doing her job by answering the phones when try rang.

There was talk a few years back about cross training the secretaries as aids so they could do aid duties when not busy. That never happened.

So, do you still have secretaries? How often? What do they do?

Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I'm a student, so I have no experience with the UC's, but my friend is one and she manages to sit on fb or twitter talking about the MDs and nurses all day....doesn't seem like she does very much.

Then your friend is lazy. That doesn't mean that there aren't many unit secretaries out there who are hardworking and assets to their unit.

Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
I'm actually busy. Our secretary is spending hours each day on breaks, visiting with friends, and on the phone with personal calls. Hours. I'm not suggesting firing them, I'm suggesting cross training them to do some aide duties since they are forever in short supply and overwhelmingly busy. As a nurse, more tasks are constantly thrown on my plate, so I'm well familiar with that shoe. Many of the posters who are praising their secretaries seem to be in facilities that have already done this.

Like I said, it sounds like the problem is with your unit, not unit secretaries as a whole.

Specializes in Oncology.

Our physicians are generally hospital employees and had about as much choice in learning EMR as the nurses did. I usually put in for transport myself cause the secretary is on a personal phone call. Certainly part of the problem is work ethic, but on an average day they really don't have much to do. I can't picture them sitting because they tell me on a regular basis they're not allowed to touch patients.

I think unit secretaries are assets to their units...... as long as they're cross trained to help out with aide duties.....

That would be because you friend probably has the work ethic of a hobo.

:whistling:

Hilarious!

Specializes in Oncology.
Like I said, it sounds like the problem is with your unit, not unit secretaries as a whole.

I never said it was with them as a whole. I asked what other unit secretaries are doing- from the sounds of it- loads more than ours.

Specializes in Trauma, Orthopedics.
Then your friend is lazy. That doesn't mean that there aren't many unit secretaries out there who are hardworking and assets to their unit.

Oh I'm sure! I just think it's funny that she doesn't seem to ever have to leave the desk...yet there are so many others that take on so many tasks!

The UC on our unit do not touch patients either. However, the call bells go off right in front of her, so she has to pick up and answer. NOT that she physically goes into the room to do anything for the patient, but the bell has to be acknowledged, and the nurse or aide needs to be told/beeped. And the never ending phone calls. We got a talking to as there was no UC on the off hours and the nurses were in with patients, and the phone was ringing too long without being answered, as no one could get out of the patient's room to answer it--therefore that was a huge issue. So even if the UC does nothing but sits there, it is better than running out of a patient's room every 2 seconds when the phone rings or carrying around a portable phone to have it ring in a patient's room.

Sound like the work ethic of this UC, and not a reflection of the whole.

Specializes in Emergency.
I think unit secretaries are assets to their units...... as long as they're cross trained to help out with aide duties.....

Again, it depends on the unit. The unit clerks at my work have a strictly desk job, and they are busy *all the time* (we have 3 on days and eves, 2 on nights). I work in a busy ER and there is certainly enough for them to do. In LTC or a less acute inpt unit, cross training may make sense. When I worked inpatient I certainly missed our unit clerk at night when I had to pick up her duties. I can honestly say though that I have never worked anywhere where the unit clerks had time to be either lazing about or doing the NAs duties, so it must really depend on how the unit utilizes the staff and perhaps management's attitude towards slackers.

Again, it depends on the unit. The unit clerks at my work have a strictly desk job, and they are busy *all the time* (we have 3 on days and eves, 2 on nights). I work in a busy ER and there is certainly enough for them to do. In LTC or a less acute inpt unit, cross training may make sense. When I worked inpatient I certainly missed our unit clerk at night when I had to pick up her duties. I can honestly say though that I have never worked anywhere where the unit clerks had time to be either lazing about or doing the NAs duties, so it must really depend on how the unit utilizes

the staff and perhaps management's attitude towards slackers.

True, I would imagine ERs need dedicated secretaries due to the constant in and out of patients. I worked on an inpatient oncology unit, and it made more sense to have an aide/US hybrid in the role. I know the aides loved it when someone like me (cross trained) was assigned to the desk as oppsosed to a traditional US. Nothing disgruntles a busy aide quite as much as a US who calls their cell phone to tell them room 211 needs an ice water.

Looking back, I wonder how the nurses on the floor felt about the situation. Maybe they preferred the US who was more avaiable to do desk duties. Maybe the fact that I was an aide back then colors my opinions now. I know having a US who could check vitals and toilet people really eased some of the burden off the aides.

I work as a unit secretary and sometimes we're too busy to have me work as a backup patient care tech. When I have to call doctors, answer phones, enter orders, etc, I simply can't take a patient up the floor or get the ekg or start a line. I help out when I can. However, it is also frustrating to the doctors when they cannot find me to get their orders in because I am cleaning a room so they bother the other unit clerk.

Now, overall my job is easy overall, but just because I can study twenty minutes before does not mean that I have the time to get the ice water right now. I could be in the process of entering in orders, entering an admit, on hold while an answering service directly connects me to a doctor. It's hit and miss when I am busy. This actually happened today and someone managed to steal a chart before I was finished with it so not all of the orders were entered.

Sometimes in our ER, there are times when there is nothing to do. Honestly nothing. Everything is stocked. The patients are usually drunks who are sleeping it off or waiting for the psych hospital to pick them up. Everything is done and some of the staff has gone home on low census.

Specializes in Psychiatry.

It surprises me that some are still entering orders even with CPOE. We went to CPOE last year and our secretaries don't even have access to order entry. Our dayshift secretary has picked up extra duties to help out however she can and is taking a CNA class.

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