Assistant Directors

My first expectation for my ADON is that she maintains a united front with me at all times. It's okay to disagree behind doors but there can be no undermining or gossip on the units. My ADON is the clinical supervisor and, as such, is expected to be clinically up to date on all procedures, so as to be able to provide education and guidance on the units. My ADON is champion for our clinical processes such as falls and skin care. She maintains the logs, makes rounds with the nurses, and assures documentation is complete. She provides inservicing and/or counselling as appropriate for falls. My ADON receives pink copies of all telephone orders and follows up on each one to assure the order is transcribed accurately and that the resident is receiving what was ordered. My ADON checks all new admission charts for accuracy, completeness of assessments, and appropriate documentation. My ADON attends care plan meetings weekly and covers the dining room during lunch once a week. My ADON covers occasional shifts when coverage cannot be found and participates in the on-call rotation list for weekend coverage. She is always the first to volunteer and she is admired and looked up to on the units. My ADON serves as contact for the Oxygen, Specialty Mattress, and Wound Vac companies. She is my hero, my right arm, and I have NO IDEA what I would do without her!

How many hours is your ADON averaging, cie?

She is not salaried so she punches in and out and is kept to 40 hours-she's just amazing!

Great for her too, since she's not required to "live" at the facility.

She sounds impressive.

Thanks much for sharing.

(Everybody here's gonna hate you now. )

cienurse - can you clone her?

If I could, I'd make a few just like her to fill my empty positions! I've had a 3-11 open for months now and just can't seem to fill it. I need someone with experience who is a great multi-tasker and manage being the working supervisor. Only had someone like that once and it was heaven!! Til home healthcare lured her with money and benefits!! We've been stuck ever since and piece-mealing it together with per diems and anyone that we can get to pick up the shift! So clone?! YES!! I wish I could!!

She did....I have the clone :) I just hired her and I gave her the same list. You'd of thought I wrote that.

It sounds like she could also leap over buildings in a single bound

My ADNS also takes call every other weekend.

I'm wondering how many bed facilities everyone here has? I'm the ADON of 195 bed facility (140 bed Rehab/SNFS and 55 bed Assisted Living). I am definitely required to have a united front with my DON, but most of the other duties that have been listed here are to be handled by our three nurse mangers. My on-call rotation is with the DON, so I am on-call 24/7 like she is. My prior experience was as a DON of an Assisted Living facility, so I largely am responsible to have the knowledge base of the AL regulations, in addition to knowing the SNF regs. I'm in charge of most of the education of the nurses and nursing assistants. I am also the infection control director for the entire facility including housekeeping and dietary. It is expected that I will be an extension of the DON and will step in to do the DON responsibilities whenever she is not available. Of course there are many other responsibilities as the situation demands, but my duties seem different from what I am seeing here and I am wondering if its because there is a difference in the size of our facilities?

I am an ADON working in a 160 bed facility ( ground breaking in process for 40 additional beds). We have 2 60 bed skilled units and a 40 bed Dementia unit. My repsonsibilites include being my DON's right hand. I am responsible for the clinical aspects, ensuring that all follow up is completed daily. I am also responsible for wound care follow up ( most days we have a treatment nurse and a wound MD weekly). I also participate in the disciplinary process and am responsible for attendace discipline. I am expected to cover my DON when she is unavailable. I attend meetings as needed and anything else that comes along. We are fortunate to have an Infection control RN , Quality Assurance RN and 3 RN Unit Managers. At this point we do not have to take call because we are required to have a RN 24 hours a day therefore we have a evening and night Supervisor.