Concerned and wondering....

[dansamy]

My unit is pediatrics med/surg with adult med/surg overflow. Usually, our adults consist of post-op hysts who are usually discharged the next day and "outpatient in a bed" procedures for radiology (aka "short stay") who usually come in that AM and are sent home that afternoon after their term of confinement to bed rest is over. We usually have an LPN who does the short stay patients. She is on vacation. Yesterday, I charted on 11 patients before my shift ended. I started the day with 6, sent 4 home, took over the care of 2 short stays when our day charge nurse left at 1500 and accepted 3 hysts. By the end of the day, I was frazzled and grateful that I discharged one of my peds with Q4 neurochecks, but I still had one ped with Q4 neuro checks. My short stays had Q15min VS. Our staffing usually consists of 2 RNs on most days. Yesterday, we were fortunate to have an NA. Usually, we don't. Is our staffing level appropriate? I always feel so rushed and never get to leave on time. We just changed to computer charting, so that has greatly improved my charting speed. Is it just because I am a new grad that I struggle with handling my time with all my tasks? Or am I just an unorganized mess and if I was managing my time more effectively, I'd be ok?

[Ami_J]

Sounds like you work on my floor! Except I am in Minnesota... we are a peds floor with a bunch of adult over flow in the summer. Usually Hyst's or appys, stuff like that. We sometimes have an NA if we have more than 6 pt's on the floor AND another floor doesnt' need them first - but most of the time we are on our own. But we only take 4 pt's per nurse... which I think is best... at least for the day and evening shifts... on nights they can take 5 each I think.

Hopefully the staff on your floor works well together like we do - we help eachother out without being asked so pretty much every pt on your floor is your pt... because you are willing to help anyone that needs it... but you only do assessments and notes on your own pt's.... this attitude helps TONS when you have too heavy of a pt load.

I've also found that charting everything as it happens helps a ton, and also having a checklist of things you can cross off as they are done so you don't waste any time double checking that you charted it. For example on our computer charting we have section 1, 2, 3, 4, VS and i&O's so I check them off as I complete the section.

And never be afraid to ask for help!