Labor Nurses Floating to Med Surg.....

Specialties Ob/Gyn

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Our Labor and Delivery Unit is having to float to MS...isn't this against guidelines because of infection issues with the newborns and all? Everywhere else I have ever worked it was against policy for L&D nurses to float to another unit as well as have nurses from other units float in and was considered "cross contaminating"

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? It is a HUGE problem on our unit.

Specializes in Psych, Med/Surg, LTC.
. Are those that are floating from L&D going to Med/surg and coming back to L&D to work all in the same shift?

Yes. They change scrubs and wash their hands.

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Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

Yep, we had to float in my small rural hospital too. There was simply no choice in the matter. We did not take a patient assignment, but rather, helped out on the unit, doing all the finger sticks, IV starts, med passes, diaper changes, etc etc etc. That way, if we were called back to OB, we did not have to figure out how to hand off an assignment suddenly.

You did not take care of patients in isolation------that was the one exception. We also floated to ED and ICU. It's pretty much standard in really small hospitals to do this.

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Specializes in OB/GYN & Med/Surg.

ob nurses at my hospital occasionally float to med-surg- but if we need to be "retrievable" then we don't take a patient load or work with anyone who is ill. so in essence we're acting as well paid nurse's aides or unit secretaries. :D

that would be really cool... unfortunately, where i work, it's an ob/gyn floor (prenatal, post-partum, gynecological, genitourinary) and med/surg overflow. in essence, on my unit we get anything that's a woman & not in critical condition. :eek: so whenever census gets low on my home unit, we get pulled to other med/surg units. we are supposed to only get "clean" pts so as to prevent cross-contamination if we get pulled back to our home unit (it's supposed to be a "clean unit" - no mrsa, vre, c-diff, etc. unless it's an ob/gyn pt specifically). :coollook: the only problem with all of this is that you don't always know who's actually got mrsa or vre, or even c-diff (if it hasn't come back from the lab). that's the main complaint we have on my unit, having so many copders & alzheimer's pts (coming from the nursing home). it's nothing against the pts, it's just that being in those conditions, they are much more likely to have some contagious bug. :no: oh well, such 'tis life. i try my hardest to keep good hand hygiene & universal precautions. :up:

[color=#483d8b]anyways, i don't even know what was my point! haha :p

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Specializes in Neuro/Med-Surg/Oncology.

We get pregnant patients occasionally that have other issues. Talk about feeling like a deer in the headlights. One was 32 weeks and happened to wind-up with some kind of auto-immune neutropenia. She had also been having other issues throughout the pregnancy. This was a not a low-risk, stable pregnant person.

They were adamant that our floor was the best place to be. I'm sorry, but neutropenic precautions aren't that hard to follow. None of the specialists talk to each other where I work. All were prescribing meds. They weren't even writing "when cleared with primary service." I guess it wouldn't have mattered b/c she was there under hem/onc. I don't know whats safe during pregnancy and what's not. (Or better still, what is more importatant that she receive despite the pregnancy categories.) OB ordered us to give n/s tests q shift. We don't do that.

What a disaster! These head in other oriface assignments go both ways unfortunately.:banghead:

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Specializes in L&D, OR, Med/Surg.

Where I work, the L&D is a "closed unit", meaning no RN floats in or out.

It is a matter of training - a med/sug nurse can't just pop in and deliver a baby or circulate and recover a c/s, and I can't just drop in to do a complex wound debridement and dressing change on the surgical floor (it's been way to long! LOL) It's not feasible in my opinion.

As far as cross-contamination, I have never heard of or seen this? I'm not sure why that would be an issue if proper/routine universal precautions are taken? Patients deserve to be taken care of by nurses who are qualified to deliver specialized care, if an RN is adequately equipped to work more than one specialty area, I guess it would be okay.:twocents:

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Specializes in Antepartum, L&D, Postpartum.
Where I work, the L&D is a "closed unit", meaning no RN floats in or out.

It is a matter of training - a med/sug nurse can't just pop in and deliver a baby or circulate and recover a c/s, and I can't just drop in to do a complex wound debridement and dressing change on the surgical floor (it's been way to long! LOL) It's not feasible in my opinion.

As far as cross-contamination, I have never heard of or seen this? I'm not sure why that would be an issue if proper/routine universal precautions are taken? Patients deserve to be taken care of by nurses who are qualified to deliver specialized care, if an RN is adequately equipped to work more than one specialty area, I guess it would be okay.:twocents:

I agree with the above post in that "patients deserve to be taken care of by nurses who are qualified to deliver specialized care". I don't understand why so many folks don't seem to consider Med/Surg nursing as a specialty. It seems that often Med/Surg is looked at as "basic" nursing that all nurses should be able to do when in fact it is highly specialized, just as OB is.

I work at a rural birth center in a hospital where OB nurses are often floated to Med/Surg. Many of us OB nurses have never worked a single day in Med/Surg since finishing nursing school and some of our more seasoned nurses haven't worked in Med/Surg for 20+ years. Some of our OB nurses refuse to take a team of patients and work more as an aide when floated. Of course, they get a lot of flack from staff and administration for this.

Strange thing about it is our hospital does not float nurses from the ER to Med/Surg. The administration feels that "anyone or anything can come through the ER at anytime" so they can't have their nurses floated. Uh...how is OB any different from that? We often have people just walk into the birth center bleeding, pushing, etc etc....

I really don't think we have our patients' best interests in mind when we float nurses to other floors, unless the nurse has the training and skills to do so safely. The main issue at our hospital seems to be keeping the nursing staff on Med/Surg...they are always short! High turnover, especially compared to OB where there is hardly any turnover.

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We do have L&D nurses float to M/S but once they do they remain there and don't return to L&D that shift. It only happens about once every two weeks so it hasn't been much of an issue thus far.

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Specializes in L&D,postpartum nursery.

we do as well, but we also have a nurse in ob to control the situation while you change clothes ect, we also do not take a pt load but float to help answers lights,give meds or iv pushes esp if there is only one RN on.

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Specializes in L&D,postpartum nursery.

I also do believe that ob or post partum pt need to be cared for by nurses who have been trained and have experience in ob or pp, would you want a l&d nurses taking care of your family in icu, on too many drips to count, i wouldn't know what all to look for as well as experienced icu nurses.

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