i've recently started researching and benchmarking charge pay for nurses; my hope is that i can gather enough information to present to my organization so that charge nurses can get an incentive that is adequate for the amount of work they are doing.
i would like to know:
1. how much extra do charge nurses make at your facility?
1. how much extra do charge nurses make at your facility?
$2/hr
1. if they also have an assignment.
on my floor, charges take a full assignment (3-5 pts), but they typically take the "easier" ones, ones who do not need turned, are up with one. often, however, because we are the most experienced, we take some of the more complex, unstable pts.
2. what type of floor it is.
medical floor, in a small hospital
3. number of beds in the department/floor.
30
4. your geographical location.
town of about 90,000 in the midwest
eta: on some floors, charges do not take an assignment, or take half an assignment, or only take an assignment if the census is high.
Med-Surg Unit 26 beds...we eliminated the Charge as the "Charge" was really nothing besides assigning a bed and a nurse to take the patient and got a dollar more an hour. We now decide among ourselves who will take the patient and what room. It actually has worked out. We have managers M-F 7-3 who do the bed assigning and handle other issues. After 3 and off times for managers, we have a Shift Coordinator who handles problems and usually has the nurses decide where pt go and who will take the pt. Prior to not having a charge one of the nurses would be charge and carry a full assignment.
Dayshift charge (our manager) does not take an assignment. Our manager will assign beds, help with admits and discharges and round with the doctors. On weekends, dayshift charge (any of the dayshift nurses because our manager is not there) will take on a full assignment. Not sure if the weekend dayshift charge rounds with all of the doctors. Nightshift charge always takes on a full assignment. Nightshift charge will assign beds and help out as needed. We generally have 1 doc on-call on nights and they usually don't come by unless the patient is a new admit and they didn't already see them in the ER. The primary nurse taking care of the patient will round with them if available.
I work in progressive care/telemetry. It is a 24-bed unit.
Almost always have an assignment (we try to give them the least number of patients/less acute, but that leaves them open to taking the first admission so some would rather have a full assignment of 3 pts.) During day shift Charge is expected to go to rounds with the teams, bed meetings and help other staff-a third of our staff has less than a year of experience. Plus assign beds, check the equipment/crash cart, make phone calls to ensure adequate staffing for next shift, etc.
We are a neuro step down unit with an epilepsy monitoring unit, 1:3 ratio
BluegrassRN
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