Charge nurses

[nrsang97]

HI all! Does your unit's charge nurse have an assignment? I work in a 16 bed neuro ICU an we have an assignament sometimes a double, and it is hard to do pt care and take care of charge responsibilities. We are trying to get this changed.

[nrsang97, BSN, RN]

Why would the nurse with an assignment and not the charge nurse be code nurse coordinator? That seems crazy.

We are still told that we only have 16 beds so we can't be without an assignemnt. I guess I will never be able to explain how crazy it can be to be charge and have a full pt load, and be the "problem solver".

[dorimar, BSN, RN]

yep! And they say unions are bad.... Go CNA!!!!

[JJRBuckeyeRN]

Why would the nurse with an assignment and not the charge nurse be code nurse coordinator? That seems crazy.

We are still told that we only have 16 beds so we can't be without an assignemnt. I guess I will never be able to explain how crazy it can be to be charge and have a full pt load, and be the "problem solver".

What we usually try to do is have a nurse with one pt and an open bed be the CNC "Code Nurse Coordinator." Most of the times the code comes to the ICU. That way the nurse that responds to the code will then take care of the pt once they are transferred to the ICU.

[rc72rn]

I guess we've got it pretty good, but then again, I work in a Level 1 Neuro/Surgical/Trauma ICU. Our charge nurses never have an assignment, and we always try to have a resource nurse also. When our patients start to go bad, they go bad fast, and we've got to have an extra pair of experienced hands available.

[Nurse Lulu]

Our charges always have a full assignment......we are trying to change that CAT