How is your unit managed?

Specialties Ob/Gyn

Published

Hi Everyone,

I recently decided to leave my management position in OB to teach Allied Health in the local highschool. In the meantime, our hospital administration is looking to me for input on how the unit should be managed during these times of financial hardship. We do about 350 to 400 deliveries per year. I have been managing as a full time OB director for the last 2 years. What is your experience with Charge Nurses verses having a director? I realize that Charge Nurses would not be involved in doing evaluations and discipline etc, so someone else would need to take care of that part. What things do your Charge Nurses do? What is his/her job description?

I would appreciate your input! Thank-you,

Layna

We have a director of Women's Health. A manager for couplete and another for LD and LDR. Each manager has a night and a day supervisor and each shift has a charge nurse.

We do 6000 deliveries a year

A supervisor may be the way to go for us. I am concerned that a charge nurse may not be enough for our unit (administrative duties would need to be loaded onto an already loaded director)...and then, what would happen on low census days when the charge nurse does not have that much to do?

Specializes in OB, Telephone Triage, Chart Review/Code.

At my hospital, we have a manager for PP and L&D. All staff (including float pool) do Charge. Our patients are split up equally. The only difference in Charge is that we make the assignments, do paperwork for the next shift, and tell the house supervisor who to put on call.

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

We have a nurse manager for our LDRP/GYN surgical unit. We also have a pool of RN's (mostly 0.6-0.9 FTE regulars with strong labor and newborn experience) who take turns charging the floor. Being perdiem, I am not usually required/asked to charge, but I do when I am the most experienced nurse there since we have some new people.

Our manager oversees all the paperwork/custodial issues for our unit. The charge nurse is responsible for running things on the floor on his/her shift. Our manager brought with her NO OB experience whatever so she has relied heavily on her resource charge RN's for info/feedback. I have to give her credit; she is trying HARD to learn the in's and out's of OB so she can be a better manager. It's not easy being in her position and she has stuck it out the longest so far.

Hope this helps. I digressed a bit, I know.

My suggestion is to keep a designated manager/director so you have one person to deal with. Having several or a few supervisors or charge nurses is problematic as things can fall through the cracks, one thinks the other is doing something, arguments over accountability and responsibility etc. That has been my experience. As an administrator, I like having one person to talk with about what is going on.

Comment about "financial hardships." You do understand that this term is very, very relative. One organization's definition of financial hardship may be that they only made $10 million profit for the year when last year they made $15 million and the CEO is under tremendous pressure by the board or corporate to improve the numbers. Another definition may literally mean they are losing money. Particularly, not-for-profits, county operated, or teaching institutions manage somewhat poorly with lots of wasted resources so they break even or lose money. Just depends on how you see "financial hardship." There is still much profit to be made in healthcare, thus the proliferation of "for-profit" hospitals. If the money wasn't there, there would not be any for profit hospitals around.

We have supervisors, one for each shift, then a nurse manager that oversees med-surg, OR, and OB. The supervisors help with hiring, disipline, scheduling, etc. We do not have a patient load, but will pitch in when necessary. I guess we have the best or worst of each world, depending on how you look at it.

I hope you enjoy your new teaching position

RMH

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