closed unit

Pelham · Dec 12, 2008

I work on a closed unit. We do 6 week schedules at a time. We also have to take call 3 times in a 6 week period.This usually gives us 5-6 nurses a shift and 1 call person.There are months when you have to come in on your call but there are other times when you go forever without coming in. This sounds rough but it keeps you from going to other floors. It has worked well for us. I work for a hospital where we do around 270-295 births a month. I am a pm nurse but the am does this also. The am shift usually runs with 6-7 RN and 1 OR nurse. If you have any questions for me just let me know.

lpnflorida · Dec 12, 2008

Our Rehab Hospital use to be closed. It was changed perhaps 10 years ago, I for one am grateful it changed. Yes , I had years of never being floated as our census was high. I had years of being econned a couple of days a year, no problem. And then there was this year,, thankfully we can float and no be econned to death 15 days in one year and that was with the ability to go elsewhere. God, knows what would have happened if were still a closed unit/hospital. Yeah ,acute care for allowing us to work on your side. lol:yeah:

mom2michael, MSN, RN, NP · Dec 13, 2008

We are a closed unit with about 20-30 births a month. We have a min. staff of 2 RN's and 1 OB tech/scrub tech. We always have 1 person on call.

We do 6 week schedules at a time and we self schedule, we each take call about 40-48 hours in a 6 week period.

It's up to us to schedule 3 on per shift. The day shift can usually get away with 4 but never more than that unless they have a heavy load that day with C-sections.

If we are over staffed you can ask for first call off if you would like. Otherwise they'll call around and ask. We do not mandate call offs.

If we come to work and we are overstaffed & we don't have the patient census we *might* have to float but it's never a forced issue. I came from the ER so I usually volunteer to go to ER to help them.

It works very well for us.

Atheos · Dec 13, 2008

Silly question. What exactly is a closed unit? No floating???

babyktchr, BSN, RN · Dec 13, 2008

No one goes out, no one come to help...at least that is how it is at my institution. It is a nice seller to new folks. It has worked nicely for us, even without mandatory call. My new director wants guidelines written about the "closed" portion. I was just wondering what everyone else is doing.

Thanks for the replies so far!!!!

PreggersRN, BSN, RN · Dec 14, 2008

I also work on a closed unit. However, we all float within our OB area. So if you work mother/baby for example: you can be floated to L&D, antepartum, or Special care nursery.

We do call offs if we do not have the census to report staff and the other units in OB do not need help.

We work 6 weeks schedules. With 2 call shifts per 6 weeks schedule. We also do self-scheduling.

Call offs and pulls are based on the date of last pull or call off. If it is your turn to be called off and no one else wants it you have to take it.

But, if the census is continually low (as it frequently is around the end of January and beginning of February.) you can offer yourself to the house and work on another non-OB floor in the hospital.

We do not get help from the house since we do not float to other non-OB areas. We have on occassion gotten a nurse from the house who really wanted to work (ie census is low in the hospital) that nurse has come to work OB, but only takes patients with medicine problems who are not viable (ie diabetics, lupus, sickle cell, etc.) But this happens VERY rarely.