Floating to diffrent units in your hospital

imenid37 · Dec 25, 2005

This is getting to be a make or break for me. I work ob in a small hospital. Our pt's are great for the most part. We do L/D, Nsy, GYN, and PP. We also do PACU for ob pt's. Now we get floated to Med-Surg all of the time. I really hate it. In the past, we were expected to function as a nursing assistant. Not really what I want to do, but it was o.k. w/ me. Now they are thinking we can do assessments and meds. I don't feel comfortable w/ this at all. We usually don't get a good report and I don't want to make a mistake or injure my back (almost happened last week) lugging around someone on med-surg. If my mom or dad was a pt., I'd want someone caring for them who knew what she/he was doing, not some like me. I feel that I am a very experienced and well-qualified Ob nurse, but I can't be everything. I'd never give a med-surg nurse a labour pt. or an antenatal on mag sulfate if she/he were floated to my unit. It is one thing to be a helper, but quite another to take on the responsibility of doing something quite unfamiliar to me. I know the med-surg nurses are overworked, but I did not create that situation. We have one med-surg manager in our hospital who believes his unit is well-staffed. He is totally clueless. Those nurses on that unit are stressed to the max and have way too many pt's. They run all night long. The ob nurses are pulled to this floor frequently. Almost everyone of their pt's. are confused and incontinent. The pt. load is insane. Probably, in great part due to their work environment, many of the nurses can be very unpleasant. I refuse to be bullied by someone into doing something like handing out a team of meds, which I am not really qualified to do. As I told one very nasty RN one night if I make a mistake, It won't help you, me or most of all the pts. I have heard on more than one occasion form seminars that I have attended on legal issues, that one should only do very basic "Fundamentals of Nursing" type tasks on an unfamiliar unit. Why haven't managers and supervisors heard the same things? I guess they don't listen to that part. IMHO, floating and giving a nurse "an assignment" on an unfamiliar fooor is doing more harm than good. Sure if legally, you must have x# of rn's on a unit, then pulling solves that on paper. You may as well give an orthopedic pt. to Big Bird if you're going to give him/her to me. If all of this pulling continues, I will be looking for another job soon, esp. if the expectations of what we are to do on these units increases.:angryfire

spidermonkey · Dec 26, 2005

spidermonkey · Dec 26, 2005

But, why float an RN to a unit to take v.s. and give baths? Come on, is this REALLY cost-effective? BTW, our hospital experimented w/having non-nursing personnel as house supervisors for a time. The director of respiratory care felt any nurse could float anywhere at any time, because "a nurse is a nurse is a nurse". What a fool. Would he feel the same way about this if a psych nurse was assigned to care for his loved one on ICU? You folks need to stop and think about the VERY specialized knowledge that staff members accrue when they work for a time in a particular speciality. Yes, even unit clerks and CNAs know how to enter orders and report to their superiors in very specific ways that are critical to pt. safety in their speciality. Think about it!:uhoh21:

I agree w/nursing supervisor-(Daytonite) in that basic nursing- BP's, assessments, etc. are not any different between units & can go a long way in easing the load on a short-staffed unit. The hospital I worked at expected RN's to float, b/c they did not hire LPN's, and had a limited number of aides. This hospital had a very low turnover rate & very high RN satisfaction, and I believe part of that was b/c we all worked together for the patients.

allele, LPN · Dec 26, 2005

We have a policy quite similar to Daytonite's....per diems always float first. They only exception is if they told the charge ahead of time that they wanted to be considered a 'no float'...then they were just cancelled and lost pay. If there are no per diems working that day, then staff floats in turn. We also keep a log. I work on a step down unit, so we're usually the first to float to ICU or medical tele, but we also go to med surg or rehab and OCCASIONALLY the emergency department, but no one is comfortable there so if we have to go to ED we go as a 'helping hands' only. Take vitals, help the nurses out, etc. Our unit actually tries to cancel nurses if they're not needed on a particular day and ask them to trade to a day where we may be short. It eliminates our floating to another unit AND another unit floating to us on an otherwise short day. (No one really likes floating to our unit). I personally don't mind when it's my turn. All units have always been very nice to me and fair with the assignments.....and I like the change once in a while and the different experiences I get. It all works out in the end, they use a fair system...and nurses can grumble if they want, but they can't deny it's their turn thanks to the log!! :)

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Dec 26, 2005

I take an occaisional float day.

Maternity, ICU, ER, Psych and OR/ASC staff themselves. Telemetry, Nephrology Oncology, etc. are the floors that floats work on.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Dec 26, 2005

Do any of your hospitals staff in 4 hour shifts???

Ours does, not as a set shift though, that's typically what i'll take.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Dec 26, 2005

I forgot to add that Maternity will take float pool nurses w/ prior Maternity experience for their postpartum unit.

fergus51 · Dec 26, 2005

I worked in a small but extremely busy rural hosp. & we complained about floating- so admin. asked us to list the areas we would like to be cross-trained to. I chose ER, ICU, & Med-Surg. in that order. We still had to float, but since I worked PACU/OR & hadn't done Med-Surg in YRS, if I went to Med-Surg I didn't take a full assignment- and let me tell ya, they were thrilled to have any help they could get & were VERY appreciative. I wasn't expected to pass meds for 10 patients, but I could do anything else- assessments, admissions,etc. By the same token, when they came to help us, WE were very appreciative of them. (and we didn't make them take a vented pt or manage A-lines, IABPs, etc.) It kind of gave all of us a new perspective & appreciation for what the other person did. Nobody likes floating, but the fact that we were appreciative & willing to work w/each other went a LONG way in easing the discomfort of leaving our "home".

I think the fact that they were willing to train you to certain units is the key. I would happily cross train or take assignments in units I have prior experience in (like PP, L&D). I would not like to have to go to a pediatric unit or an adult med-surg unit without being cross trained since I don't have experience in those areas.