Admissions Nurse

[CapeCodMermaid]

There is talk in my facility about creating a new position..an admissions nurse position. I am not sure I think it'd be a good thing. I already have problems with my team nurses thinking their job is just to pass meds and do treatments and if I have another nurse do all the admission assessments, it removes the team nurses even further from learning about the patient.

Do any of you have an admissions nurse? I'm curious as to what they do if there are no admissions. Are the hours flexible? Most of my admissions arrive after 3pm so it would make no sense to have a nurse 9-5 or even 10-6.

Any comments welcomed.

[not2bblue]

It may be that you have already made a decision about this, but I thought I would add. Each state obviously has different regs, but this is what we did at a place that may work for you. I was a 3-11 supervisor. I was one of the only RNs and Florida requires an RN do the admission assessment. SO I was the "admissions nurse" but the primary nurse would still be responsible for parts of the admission and I had other responsibilities on my shift. I did staffing for 11-7, supervised meals in the dining room to free up a floor nurse from doing it (again this was a state reg, CNAs worked in the DR as well, but a nurse was required in case of aspiration which a CNA can't assess), chart checks, I would also do odds and ends to help the floor nurses, like bring supplies they needed from the supply room or help them catch up, and cover breaks. I also had to cover the carts for call-outs. This was more difficult when there were admissions because I had a full load of residents, plus had to go cover the admission. It didn't happen all the time, but it was a nightmare and I had NO LTC experience before this job. So, having an experienced LTC nurse in this position would be my suggestion but I don't know what type of staffing you already have. Having a shift supervisor position with other tasks to be done on the shift (and this would need to be reasonable given high admissions on Friday) you can justify the hours and have a person there to coordinate tasks outside of just admissions.

[Dalla]

I know this thread is a bit old, but I wanted to chime in on my last experience with an Admissions nurse. The floor nurses never saw her. She went to the hospitals and found the patients to be admitted. I am sure she did some paperwork in getting them into the facility and perhaps with Medicare/Medicaid, but a really big gripe of the floor nurses was that she never did the "admission" onto the floor. Everything from welcoming the patient, to processing the orders, verifying the orders with the MD, ordering meds from pharmacy, filling out all the papers concerning ADLs/skin check/diet preferences/etc. When a PM floor nurse has to care for all the other patients, pass meds twice, do treatments, process pharmacy deliveries, process new orders, deal with suddenly acute patients, . . . , doing all the admission on one or two new patients is extremely time consuming.