A code of a different color....

oramar · Feb 13, 2001

sicker and sicker?
I'm talking Medsurg quality, as in should have never left the unit stuff on the rehabilitiation floor??
danke shoen
--BA [/b]

I always worked med/surg, telemetry but got pulled a lot to the rehab unit. The patients were getting sicker and sicker. I had blood running, chest tubes getting inserted, everybody on IV antibiotics and TPN. Seemed like half the patients had phlebits or phenumonia. Then the hopital reports reduced patient length of stays. It was ridiculous, the stays were not reduced, the patients were just being treated for their illness on rehab. Meanwhile staffing stayed at old rehab staffing levels which are about half that of med/surg.

ruth · Feb 14, 2001

Boy oh boy! When I started in rehab we hung blood about once every 2 years! Now it's common. We get quite a few patients go bad in less than 12 hours on the floor. One of the most difficult aspects of the high acuity level is that you have some really sick patients that require alot of your time and at the same time you've got a couple of patients that take 2 or 3 staff (and 20 minutes) to transfer that have to go to the bathroom (no bedpans on rehab if you're stable!), meanwhile, one of your head injured patients just managed to get off the unit and the wanderguard alarms alert you to this. It's surreal. Many nurses think rehab is cush, until they transfer to the unit! But it is rewarding, and you get to see miracles happen.