Getting nurses to come to your inservice

For short inservices, bring it to the nurses. Post some times that you will be around, do 2-3 short & sweet inservices on the unit. If your nurses generally feel they can't take lunches away for very long, do an inservice at meal times, they go get their lunch, bring it back, and you do your inservice. Remember, the shorter the better. Also, can you put some of the information in writing? Then they can review it at their own pace, have an even shorter inservice on it in a week or two and save both of you some time. Just a couple more thoughts.

I am a staff educator for a busy medicine unit. Staff nurses do not come to my inservices because they say they don't have enough time to be away from their patients to attend. They feel guilty asking another nurse to cover for them (even so they can go to lunch!)

How can a foster an environment on the floor that prioritizes inservice attendance and ongoing education, as well as allowing nurses to take a "time out" for themselves? Please asnwer with any ideas..thanks.

I completely understand. I am a staff educator for a surgery floor. Shortly after I had started I put a lot of work into a well prepared inservice that was to last about an hour. It was on a topic that my nurses had been asking about when I sent out a needs assessment. 3 people showed up and I had donuts! And don't even get me started on mandatory inservices. Now on the whole, I ask for time in staff meetings, do poster inservices, handout inservices or do 3-5 minute quickies with as many people as I can grab at that moment. I sometimes come in on nite shift to cover them also. If I want to do something more involved, I try to do it available for the whole hospital (350 bed). Then usually more than 3 show up. If anyone has any better ideas?????

I work in LTC and we have a pharmacist that brings drug reps in once a month for an inservice and they provide lunch. Most of the nurses on at that time come, some from other shifts show up occasionally. We decided that if we wanted our nurses to get inservice time, we had to take it to them. We find articles that are pertinent and if they are from a journal we hope they have there own questions, we just check the answers and that way the nurse gets credit for inservice. It is not perfect, but it works. NA

Speaking as a staff nurse...we generally dont want to give anymore time then we have already given to the hospital. Staff educators see this as necessary,I know alot of girls see it as another way for the hospital to get us to volunteer more free time.

They already would like us to skip lunch and then when we do get one you want to inservice us during our only free time in an 8 hour period. thanks for being considerate.

If you want to get us. Make out data and distribute it and let us read it. Have check off sheets to sign at our own pace.

Be around on the floor when we need you. EX: you know pt new chest tube....use him as learning tool,,,,,do rounds on him with the nurses on the floor... we can assimulate the information on a REAL LIVE patient. Keep your ears perked up for pts like that or anything that throws some girls for a loop.

Oh I forgot one more thing. Please dont tell us that if we dont do these inservices it will negativly impact our yearly evals........most staff nurses i talk to consider that a joke anyway,,,,,I read a stat recently that said the average yearly increase for RNs is 1-3%. This is not a great incentive to get us to show up. You need to tie it to the patients more,,,,delivery of care. Make it practital and relavent to now,,,,dont just fill a square. Someone code recently ,,,,well good time to review codes with staff.....it counts then!!!!

EL...when staff nurses cover for each other they basically just babysit the patients... no real work gets done they are too busy trying to get the work done on their own patients. Why not try an inservice/education day a couple of times a year. Schedule nurses to come in for a day of learning (paid of course) you could include your CPR, IV / ACCU check recertifications along with mandatory stuff (fire safety, right to know, ect...), competencies...I think you get the point. The nurses would then be able to give their undivided attention to learning and not worry about what is going on with their patients.

Originally posted by elainelisa:

I am a staff educator for a busy medicine unit. Staff nurses do not come to my inservices because they say they don't have enough time to be away from their patients to attend. They feel guilty asking another nurse to cover for them (even so they can go to lunch!)

How can a foster an environment on the floor that prioritizes inservice attendance and ongoing education, as well as allowing nurses to take a "time out" for themselves? Please asnwer with any ideas..thanks.

At the facility that I work we are REQUIRED to come to monthly meetings. If we miss a meeting this will reflect upon us when we are reviewed for raises. They offer the mettings one a month at three different times durring the day so that all employees can attend.

I don't know how others are run but where I work, first and foremost we get paid (i would assume that is done at most institutions). So obviously i do not mind that too much, hrs are hrs / $ is $. Secondly for an inservice there are multiple days a person can attend. Most attend on their days off so you don't have to worry about lunch and patient load to attend the inservice. (get rid of inservices during the shift, when i go to work i like to concentrate on one thing only my patients).

Lastly our Coordinator has set it up so that there are some mandatory inservices and some voluntary. The rule of thumb is that we should attend at least 50%. And yes this is also used in our yearly evalutations, which is fine with me. I'd rather get credit for going to them as opposed to someone who doesn't attend any and gets the same raise as I do (See the picture? Credit is given where credit is due).

One more thing is that if there is an issue of particular concern that the staff seems interested in (We are a smaller hospital) then a staff member (PCT, LPN, RN, HUC, RT, PT, OT, ST, etc.) can volunteer to teach the inservice. This helps to get the staff involved and it makes for worthwhile presentations, since it is somthing everyone is interested in. These are held monthly. This works extremely well and everyone seems to like our whole system on inservices the way they are.