Calling all DIALYSIS CHARGE NURSES

[willsgirl]

Are there any charge nurses out there, willing to talk about their responsibillities at the unit. Could you guys talk about what makes your position different from the staff nurses position. Do you have more clinical responsibilities or is the difference the administrative aspect. Does anyone mind talking about their job in details.....the good, the bad and the ugly?

Thank you all so much. There is sooooo much pooled knowledge on this website, I just like to pick peoples brains.

[Rocknurse, MSN, APRN, NP]

I am an acute charge nurse, or Clinical Coordinator which is my official title. My responsibilites are far greater than the team that I am in charge of. My nurses will go out to dialyze individual patients in the ICU and get to sit down and read a book for 4 hours. I get 4 patients in my acute room, with one tech. The phone never stops ringing. I am given order by the docs and I must assign patients across 5 facilities. I need to figure out how many hours each person has to avoid them going into overtime. I design new ways of documenting information. I compile information throughout the day...how many patients, how many treatments, how many nurses doing those treatments. I fill in AORs, I do the QA for the month. I file all the flowsheets and generally keep track of all the paperwork. I deal with questions from other managers from all different departments and have to be ready for the State walking in the door at any minute. I have to ensure that all the medications are in date and not expired, that we have enough dialyzers, pheresis setups and CRRT dialysate. I need to ensure all the machines are current with their PMs and contact Biomed when machines break. Somehow, in between all of that, I need to do patient care also. It's a LOT of work but I love it. I work ten times harder than anyone else and I don't earn much more than they do, but I am glad I do what I do. Hope that helps.

[willsgirl]

Thank you,

So, your patient care level is the same as the staff nurses but, you also have administrative duties that you are in charge of.

I see.

[workingmomRN]

Rock nurse has described the charge nurse's duties very well. It is a lot of headaches because you are responsible not only for your own patients but for supervising the rest of the team as well. It is hard work, but some nurses are handle it very well & some do not. It just depends on what your strengths & weaknesses are.

[willsgirl]

I was wondering.....are the responsibilities different in chronic dialysis vs. acute dialysis. I mean, is it easier in the chronic dialysis clinic to be charge nurse than in acutes?

[GeauxNursing]

I'd say it's probably just as hard, if not harder to be charge in chronics. My CN is in control of pretty much all of our pts medical care, appts, rxs, transportation, etc. watching over the PCTS and I (LVN), checking water, doing all assessments, care plans, QA meetings; admitting new patients and visitors.

[GeauxNursing]

Actually, I can't say it's harder because 1) I'm not a CN 2) never worked in acutes. But I do know that my CN works her tail off for 16+ hours every tx day.