Efficient clinic and job satisfaction. Help please!

[NurseFries, BSN, RN]

Hello,

I work at an outpt clinic in a huge medical organization that is VERY understaffed. I work 3 days a week and another nurse works 5 days a week. We are currently looking to hire another part-time nurses like myself and a full-time nurse to take the place off the other full time nurse who got promoted.

Us nurses do all the phone triaging, refills, prior auth medications, answer email messages from pt's, prepare orders, preop pt's for procedures, admin sedation in the procedure room, and monitor/post op pts. We do a lot of other things as well. We do not have a call center.

We (nurses) take about 40-70 calls a day and have anywhere from 3-6 procedures a day.

There are usually 2-3 docs in a day who see anywhere from 12-22 pt's day each, plus procedures. There are 4 - 5 Fellow MD's a day too. The MA's only room pt's and do UDS. They can do a lot more, but are not reliable. We are working on that.

So, my questions is this. How does your clinic run and what are the nurses responsibilities? I am looking for examples for our clinic.

I am seriously losing my mind due and feeling burned out. I feel like I am doing task after task and working at the bottom of my license.

Thanks!

[oceanblue52]

Wow, this seems a little crazy. I work in outpatient Psych so our duties are a bit different (e.g. we just do injections, not anything crazy like post-op or sedation). Will say that we have about 8 docs (some part-time), and we have many of the same obligations:refills, PARS, phone calls, emails from providers. On a bad day we get 30-40 calls a day (and maybe they are a bit worse b/c they are Psych related and require lengthy conversations and follow up?).

The only way this chaos works is that we have two MAs and one RN. MAs can pretty much do everything that RNs can do other than dealing with Scheduled meds...and they are of course uncomfortable dealing with difficult clinical scenarios.

Don't know if that feedback is of much help since Psych is very different from your setting...but will offer my sympathy and say that you do the best you can (and find another job if it’s too stressful after a time). We were understaffed for awhile at my job and it was horrific. People like to think out patient is easy, but it can be just as crazy and chaotic as inpatient.

[winniewoman9060ret]

When I worked in a primary care clinic, we had RNs doing triage calls, injections, rooming patients, doing Rx renewals and it was a struggle. I don’t know how you’re keeping up with everything.

If you have secretaries, they can do they prior authorizations.

Is there clerical or non Rn tasks that can be delegated to other staff?

Good luck