Home Health RN going back to hospital setting.

[Kauai RN]

Aloha, I am an RN with two years med surg experience, but have been in home health for the past 6 years. Any advice on RN refresher courses or websites for practice nursing calculations to get my foot back into the hospital setting?

[MamaKitty13214]

I went back to a hospital bedside job after 10 yrs working first in a hospital (4 yrs) then in hospice, home care and field case management and found some sample medication tests online just by googling several terms -- that was 8 yrs ago, so I don't remember what I googled but there are sample tests out there to practice with for medication & IV calculations. I didn't like the bedside job because of the often unsafe staffing ratio and the Nurse Manager of my unit was a backstabber, so bye-bye to that job after 2 yrs. Found a float case manager job at a different hospital with a great boss, so that is still working well after 6 yrs.

Since you worked in homecare, you probably case managed your patients and you might want to consider a hospital case management position. You don't need to be giving meds or doing the icky things that make bedside nursing a real challenge sometimes, but you have to know all of that in order to develop a safe discharge plan for your patients. Having worked in home care, you have a good understanding of what the continuum of care involves and would be an excellent candidate for the expanding field of hospital case management. Worth thinking about. Good Luck! :flwrhrts:

[Kauai RN]

Yes Mama Kitty, currently I manage the care for 30+ clients as well as managing over 50 employees. I have thought about this but was the understanding I may need more recent hospital experience to be a hospital case manager. What is the going pay rate?

[MamaKitty13214]

I'm in upstate NY (WAAY north of NYC) and where I work FT case manager salaries range from 70-80K or more DOE. So, I can't complain. The money and benefits meet my needs.

You may want to do something like what inadvertently happened to me -- I actually went back to the hospital job because I needed better health insurance coverage because my son needed a few surgeries. Turned out the insurance coverage from that job really stank and it is not getting better.

You have a lot of home care experience which is its own challenge and I am sure many of your patients are recent hospital discharges so you are very familiar with what their post-discharge needs are. It is worth applying for a case management job with your background even if you have only had a few years of hospital experience -- you never know -- if they really need case managers, they will consider someone with a lot of home care experience and some hospital experience. The challenges you have in home care can require WAY more resourcefulness and creativity than the challenges you have as a bedside nurse in a hospital -- hospital nursing is just as task oriented and time management oriented as home care nursing and you don't have the resources in home care that you have in the hospital, so the challenge of the work is often much greater. Nursing is always a learn-as-you-go adventure.

So, depending on where you are in your life, either way might work for you in a hospital -- and different hospitals have different cultures as well. Most long time nurses that I know have had too many jobs to list on a resume because they went from one job to the next because the last was too exploitative. And if you can't trust the people or system you work with to be fair, it's another bye-bye until you find what works for you.

The huge benefit to being an RN is that your skills are always in demand, you just have to look around to find the best fit for you.

I never thought I would go back to hospital nursing after I left. I am now finding it to be

way more interesting than I ever thought it could be (I'm in a state teaching hospital which is a Level I trauma center, so we see EVERYTHING here) . You will make more money in bedside nursing because of overtime and shift differentials (hopefully) but you will get a "bigger picture" in hospital case management and, depending on where you work, better time flexibility and negotiating power.

Good Luck to you whatever you decide! :flwrhrts:

[SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN]

you will get a "bigger picture" in hospital case management and, depending on where you work, better time flexibility and negotiating power.

don't forget that we are also treated like equal partners to physicians and as human beings.... for instance, we get to take potty breaks and eat lunch.