I've worked both day shift and night shift. Night shift can get pretty crazy and they tend to have heavier workloads than day shift... But when it comes down to it, I always find that night shift has more downtime than day shift does. Night shift has time to take breaks, whereas on day shift we clock out for lunch, set our alarms, and go right back to work. The phone calls, doctor visits, demanding families, and coordination with rehab schedules is all added onto the workload of day shift nurses.
With that being said, urine specimen collections is (mostly) part of the tasks of the night shift. Just as someone said earlier, the specimens are more fresh that way. Yes, we have a specimen fridge. But its just common practice for us to get fresher specimens.
However, if there is an antibiotic order to be carried out, we collect the specimen right away so we can start the antibiotics after. That's the only time we let a specimen sit in the fridge longer than a couple of hours...
I've worked both day shift and night shift. Night shift can get pretty crazy and they tend to have heavier workloads than day shift... But when it comes down to it, I always find that night shift has more downtime than day shift does. Night shift has time to take breaks, whereas on day shift we clock out for lunch, set our alarms, and go right back to work. The phone calls, doctor visits, demanding families, and coordination with rehab schedules is all added onto the workload of day shift nurses.
With that being said, urine specimen collections is (mostly) part of the tasks of the night shift. Just as someone said earlier, the specimens are more fresh that way. Yes, we have a specimen fridge. But its just common practice for us to get fresher specimens.
However, if there is an antibiotic order to be carried out, we collect the specimen right away so we can start the antibiotics after. That's the only time we let a specimen sit in the fridge longer than a couple of hours...
I was just wondering if it's okay to have a patient with a trach in SNF due to no beds being available in a subacute unit. Any input?