Maintaining "trust" with staff as a clinical educator

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As a department specific clinical educator you are destined to find mistakes made by staff during your daily work. Are you expected to report these to the unit manager? How do you decide when to report and when not to report an error? What do you do about an employee that has repeat errors? How do you maintain the balance of the staff knowing you support them and "have their back" but also fulfill your obligation to the Manager to report errors/incidents?

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I follow policy. If it's a reportable error, it gets reported. Error reporting is to identify trends to make improvements in process or training. the focus is not usually to reprimand a nurse.If a nurse has repeat errors, identify why? Is it knowledge/skill deficit? If so, what can be done? Document the training you provided. If it is not knowledge/skill deficit it is highly likely a compliance issue. In that case, it's a manager issue.

ie: rt was complaining that nurses were not deep suctioning RSV patients. I had all nurses demo a successful deep suction and documented it. I proved it was not a knowledge or skill deficit. So then the management had to enforce that nurses be accountable for suctioning and collaborating instead of delegating to RT.

As far as supporting staff, it's all about communication. There are many ways to say you don't know what you're doing! :) In addition, our hospital encourages self reporting, is that not the case at yours?

Good luck!

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Exactly as above. You follow policy and you educate. One of the more unfortunate parts of being a nurse educator is that what you do/learn can ultimately cost someone their job, so you are viewed as "leadership" or "management", but your actual focus is never punitive, just educational. It takes a while of working with people face to face for them to realize you aren't going to tattle on them for BS reasons. I go out of my way to let people know that this is a learning period, when they are spending time with me, and that my goal is to give them information to make their jobs easier and safer and to make their patients safer and well cared for.

If someone is paranoid (and some are) recognize that has nothing to do with you and you cannot fix it. This has been difficult for me. There are always two to three people who feel like you are questioning their intelligence or who don't like to be told anything, even if it is something useful or who want to poke holes in what you do or how you do it. It is part of the job, dealing with these folks and has no reflection at all on you as an educator. I take what they say, see if it has merit and most of it I just let wash over me. Some people just live to stir things up. Not my problem. You will find it is the same people over and over again or the same department over and over again.

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Yes, we are encouraged to do self reporting of errors and most do but there are a couple that feel like the Director "doesn't like them" and fear being reprimanded. These are the same ones who have repeated mistakes. They accuse the charge nurses of "picking" on them and not reporting everyone who makes errors. Like you say, my best bet is to talk to the Director about her expectations of me in this situation and stick to policy. Thanks so much for the response/advice!

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Yes, I definitely have some of those personality types in the department. I guess when I start the position (in the near future), when it is announced, I will tell them collectively that my job is to educate and remediate but also let them know what the Director expects me to report. I will just have to remember what you said about having a thick skin when certain nurses accuse me of "picking" on them. Thanks so much for the advice and encouragement!

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.
Yes, I definitely have some of those personality types in the department. I guess when I start the position (in the near future), when it is announced, I will tell them collectively that my job is to educate and remediate but also let them know what the Director expects me to report. I will just have to remember what you said about having a thick skin when certain nurses accuse me of "picking" on them. Thanks so much for the advice and encouragement!

Actually your director really ought to be the one telling them what you are expected to report. You want to keep your role as far away from punitive actions as possible.

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I agree. Yes, I will ask her to do that! Thanks!

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