ICU to ER

Specialties Emergency

Published

Hey everyone. I am thinking about transferring to an ER when I get my year in of ICU. One of the main reasons why I want to transfer is because I am more into just doing the skills to get the patient going and keep them alive over trying to keep the patient alive on top of having to chart 10 million things every hour.  How is the charting in the ER do you have to chart baths? Are your patients ever on strict I/O? Like what are your biggest priorities when it comes to charting and tasks in the ER?   TIA:)

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Specializes in Emergency Medicine, Critical Care, Research.

We use  ED Narrator for charting. Really simple setup. Mostly charting things like your ED assessment, mandatory triage questions, etc. I work in a level 3 trauma center. Due to our volume, the task can get hectic I.e 4 patients. Pt 1 is a diabetic on an insulin drip (glucostabilizer check q1 hr), Pt 2 elevated Trop on heparin drip, Pt 3 renal pt transported by EMS high K+, and then EMS brings you a stat chest pain......some days it's non-stop! Worst part is trying to call a floor report once you get a bed assignment....you can't reach your nurse because they are drowning too.....I've done many walking reports.. also some days I've had to sit down and read the chart before giving a report. Some days you are drowning like that! Truama, sedation, and code charting will be the worse. But you should be used to code charting. Hope this helped! 

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Baths?  I/Os?  TF you talking about?  Everybody knows ER nurses don't do that kind of stuff.  ?

 

In all seriousness though, it's gotta be a REALLY slow day if I'm giving someone a bath.  Not because I don't want to, which I don't, but because baths don't help the practitioner make their diagnosis, don't determine the course of care, and won't affect disposition...  and are therefore prioritized lower than anything else  that does one of those things.  You may wind up doing one, but only if the outcome of that bath helps determine whether they are discharged, admitted, and to which service. Otherwise, turn over the room and grab the next one.

 

In 14 years, I've given maybe 2 bed baths [on boarders, naturally]... I doubt you'll be giving them a much as you may envision. 

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5 hours ago, ColdUnfeelingRobot said:

Baths?  I/Os?  TF you talking about?  Everybody knows ER nurses don't do that kind of stuff.  ?

 

In all seriousness though, it's gotta be a REALLY slow day if I'm giving someone a bath.  Not because I don't want to, which I don't, but because baths don't help the practitioner make their diagnosis, don't determine the course of care, and won't affect disposition...  and are therefore prioritized lower than anything else  that does one of those things.  You may wind up doing one, but only if the outcome of that bath helps determine whether they are discharged, admitted, and to which service. Otherwise, turn over the room and grab the next one.

 

In 14 years, I've given maybe 2 bed baths [on boarders, naturally]... I doubt you'll be giving them a much as you may envision. 

LOL I know y’all don’t do baths I was kind of just giving an example of some of the small things we keep up with as ICU nurses, but I know I didn’t word it that way. But thanks for your response that’s why I would rather do ER because I would if I just brought someone back from the dead I don’t want nobody asking me about I/O or freaking baths which has happened before… I work with cancer patients also so our floor is very strict about it and it’s irritating because we don’t even have pct’s so I’m responsible for literally every little thing. 

On 3/25/2022 at 10:38 PM, Medic2RN72 said:

We use  ED Narrator for charting. Really simple setup. Mostly charting things like your ED assessment, mandatory triage questions, etc. I work in a level 3 trauma center. Due to our volume, the task can get hectic I.e 4 patients. Pt 1 is a diabetic on an insulin drip (glucostabilizer check q1 hr), Pt 2 elevated Trop on heparin drip, Pt 3 renal pt transported by EMS high K+, and then EMS brings you a stat chest pain......some days it's non-stop! Worst part is trying to call a floor report once you get a bed assignment....you can't reach your nurse because they are drowning too.....I've done many walking reports.. also some days I've had to sit down and read the chart before giving a report. Some days you are drowning like that! Truama, sedation, and code charting will be the worse. But you should be used to code charting. Hope this helped! 

Thank you!!

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