No nurses on floor during report

[bethin]

I've spoken with my nm regarding my concerns that no nurses are on the floor at shift change. I work 0630-1830. Third shift nurses leave at 0700, when the day shift comes in. Night shift tapes report. Day shift nurses then all go to the report room. No one is on the floor except aides and a unit secretary. Sometimes I'm the only aide. So that makes 2 people on the floor.

When I talked to the nm I said that since the nurses take turns getting report that those who are not listening to report on their patients can return to the floor until they are called. On more than one occassion I've had to call a code. No floor nurses showed up because where they listen to report there is no speaker for the intercom.

Oh, and report lasts from 0700-0815, often times longer. Does anyone else see a problem with this? Yes, the nurses are only a few feet away but like I said, they don't hear when codes are called.

Another bad example: last week had a pt with chest pain and an extensive cardiac history. Put on light and was complaining of severe chest, jaw and arm pain. I interrupted report to let a nurse know. Went back to get vitals. Pt is diaphoretic, soa, and moaning in pain. O2 sat @88%. I can't do anything. The nurse shows up 10 mins later - I kid you not, the pt timed it. In the span of 10 mins I tried to find another nurse but was scared to leave the pt if she became unresponsive. I couldn't find another nurse. I could have paged the NS but she was involved in a code in OB.

[Sabby_NC]

When I worked in the hospital setting the nurse gave report to the next staff member in the pts room. None of this all gathering in the same room. :uhoh21:

Reports should be concise, only important info (which does not happen all the time) and outta there to allow the next nurse to get on with her work.

Forgot to add that we had a list of all pts and impertinent info but got report only on our patients.

[Rexie68]

The facilities I've worked in...night shift isn't allowed to leave until day shift nurses are on the floor.

Please make sure you're documenting everything.....sending email and saving a copy is a nice "paper trail." Then perhaps if you give your NM a copy of your documentation you'll get somewhere? Of course, there's always going over his/her head....but CYA, 'cause you need to prove that you've brought it to her/his attention.

Heck, it's 7am and you need an RN ASAP....call the operator and ask her to page the NM or DON STAT. She/he will get tired of it after a while and make some changes!

[KristiePDX]

This sounds like management trying to cut costs by eliminating overlap between shifts. They give us 30 minutes to review written and do a brief verbal about any updates ect. No to say that we have not had our problems.

Somtimes dayshift used to take a full 45-50 min in report and we (nocs) would not see the whites of their eyes until 15-20 min after our shift oficially ended. Management DEMANDED that we leave ON TIME to save overtime costs. We were just expected to leave as our noc charge was still there and has a full report on all pts on the unit.

That did not fly to well either. I dont like the idea of anyone being responsible for so many Pts, I dont care if you are super nurse!

What ended up working out better was our written report sheets on each Pt were reviewed by oncoming nurse for 15min, then a 15 min verbal about any extra tips and stuff. Night shift was expected to be in the nurses station and avaliable for dayshift questions ect.

Charges reported to charges, and report is updated by staff RN's a few hours into the shift after they hav seen the Pt with thier own two eyes.

You are assigned a buddy and you give each other a brief nitty gritty befor going on break.

[Starr1966]

i work nights in a hospital and a ltcf, at the hospital when dayshift comes on, the day staff are all in the report room and one night nurse will go give report as the others remain on the floor, then the next one goes back. our report lasts anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on the census. sometimes longer if needed, but rarely longer than 30 mins. we used to do one on one reporting and the charge nurse would update the oncoming cn. personally, i liked this form of reporting better, but they wanted to do group reporting.

another hospital that i worked at we did taped report and the oncoming shift would listen to report while the previous shift was on the floor, and if there were any questions they asked when they came out. it worked pretty well for the most part.

at the nh, we now give verbal report to the oncoming nurse et med aides. the cna's get their report from a sheet that the cn fills out for them of pertinent information they feel the cna's need to know. i don't like this form of reporting to the cna's because i don't think that half of them read it. the reasoning for doing report this way was because they felt it took to long and the cna's weren't getting started soon enough. report still takes as long and the cna's don't get report other than from that sheet. if they actually read it or not, who knows for sure. i'm betting that a select few don't.

wanda