Factory Nursing?

jennifer007 · Jan 22, 2013

I work for Emerson as an occupational health/plant nurse. It is a great job but as the turnover is not very high openings are rare. I was lucky that I had just come home from a travel assignment and a friend said the local factory needed a nurse. I applied and got the job. If you are interested in working for a factory, you could call their HR department and ask them about on-site nursing. You could also tell them that with growing health care costs having an on-site nurse is a great way to curb work comp costs and to keep track of health and safety issues. Having a nurse on-site prevents the factory from sending out cases that can be handled in-house and care can be given to employees faster in the event of an emergency. There are many good arguments for factories to hire nurses. You may have to sell it, but it is worth it.

Take care,

Jen

Topaz7 · Jul 12, 2013

Thank you :)

42pines · Sep 28, 2013

Simply research (ok--maybe not so simply) and find all manufacturing within travel distance with 200 or more employees find if they have an Occ Health person/clinic--talk to them.

But factory nursing does require wearing a lot of hats. Fast response, CPR/AED/FA training; Bloodborne Path training; dealing with ADA, FMLA, and more importantly Workers' Comp/Insurance companies; often spirometry training, audiometry training (COHC) is required as well as some safety knowledge. The best way to "get in" is to find someone who offers Occ Health to smaller companies and work for them--even if only part time to get experience/training, then work towards COHN credentialing.

I like factories and have worked in a paper mill, a gun factory, a big pharma factory and a mege warehouse--it's varied and definitely not boring.

jesskalpn · Feb 13, 2014

I work in an occupational health clinic for a mill, but I'm actually a contracted employee through a home health agency. The contracting mill prefers to staff our medical department with contracted staff because it's less money out of their pocket. I would imagine that a lot of other companies do the same thing, so maybe check out the home health agency websites for assignments that are marked 'occ health' or as 'long-term contract'. Our openings never list the actual company we work for, so you may have to do some calling to find out what the listed jobs are actually for.

42pines · Feb 13, 2014

Yeah, jess...come to think of it, I've never been a direct hire and my various jobs have always been either via a headhunter or an Occ Health agency. I think that direct hires are almost non-existent if only due to litigatory reasons. The Occ Health Agencies have always had a doc or NP that specializes in Occ Health available 24/7.

And one thing that I've noticed is that often nursing jobs are not posted on the corporate website. A good way is to network, start with joining AAOHN.org and look for local/state chapters. A linkedin profile is wise also.