Mandatory float to ICU?

Holy....that would definitely be enough to have me refusing the job. I think one of the most insulting things I ever heard a doctor say was "A nurse is a nurse", referring to this sort of situation. This attitude completely disrespects the amount of knowledge nurses carry in their respective specialties and on their own units. How is it that ICU nurses are off the hook for floating to peds, OB and psych but you are expected to go to ICU? Is it not just as much of a unique specialty? Doctors don't float between specialties, why should nurses? How could this possibly benefit the patient? It doesn't, of course, it's just convenient for management but that should never be the only reason for putting in place a policy this potentially unsafe. Sheesh.

The ICU nurses only float to the ED but they don't take care of psych pts, and peds pt's, or OB pt's which will make it very difficult for us charge nurses to try and make assignments and place pt's. Also if we are floated up there than we would not get the complicated pt's...lol, like we don't take care of them in the ED.

I could see me floating to ICU and them to dialysis...we'd have a race on who could kill off the pt first:uhoh21:

So we just renewed our union contract and they agreed to have mandatory float to ICU for all new hires and the current staff can "opt-in" or "opt-out", so this means if the ICU is "low-censused" they will float down to us but won't take care of Ped's, OB, or psych. In the never seen before "low-census" for us we would float up there. I can't believe our weak union agreed to this...at first management wanted all of us to be required to float but of course settled for all new hires from both departments and an optional program for us.

I just was wondering how many other hospitals are doing this? Management was able to name two hospitals that are doing it, one in Vegas and the other in So-Cal...both by the way non-union.

I have heard of critical care float pools a lot but to have core staff and all new hires float sounds different to me. Currently we have 12 positions we have been unable to fill I wander how long they will be listed when they add the ICU float requirement to them.

In my hospital the ER is a closed unit, meaning we do not float to any other units. We have a float staff that is Critical Care Trained which floats to all units. I've often thought of going into the float pool but I would be required to spend at least a year in the ICUs which is a good thing, as I have never worked anywhere but the ER as a nurse. Essentially, the reason I wanted to go float is because we get floats all the time to ER and they get to pick their own schedule,there are no oncalls, and I thought that would be awesome. Otherwise I'll just stay put.

I've never worked for a hospital that didn't force nursing into floating when it was in the suporvisory staffs' favor. I work for a union hospital and the best our bargaining unit could get was limited floating to units of simular (in the hospitals definition) patient populations. Most other hospitals in this area- you float anywhere they want you to and take a full team with full RN responsibility whether you are oriented there or not. I thought this was EVERYWHERE. All the nurses hate it but no other soultion to changing staffing needs has ever been found.

We don't have unions in Virginia. I've worked at several hospitals in this area though and non-ICU nurses float to ICU in all of these hospitals. However, they do not take any patients, or if they do, they take patients that already have orders to transfer out. If they don't take patients, they task to help out the other nurses. In situations like these, the nurse doing the floating needs to speak up for themselves and not take on more than they can handle.

In my facility, ER, Telemetry, and ICU are considered "sister units" and staff can be pulled between them. In reality, the ER staff NEVER goes to the ICU or Telemetry. The argument is that anything can happen at any time in the ER so they aren't willing to give up their staff. Due to this, and the fact that we can get admits/codes at any time too, our boss has started refusing to send us to the ER.

If we go, there are no exceptions to who we can take care of in the ER...but we can't chart. Our ER has a completely different charting system then the rest of the hospital. So when we go there, they just have us play resource nurse instead of taking assignments.

And let me just say that I think floating is total crap. Unless the hospital is willing to give me a complete orientation to each unit, I am totally uncomfortable with floating anywhere...even to so called "sister units".

We ICU folk float out to Med-surg, OB, ER and Skilled. (the whole dang place!!) OB is a closed unit and noone floats out, Im pretty sure it is the same for ER.

I cant tell ya how many times they have called me to Float to OB, and I have told them if they can find someone from the unit to go, I will take ICU spot...

I dont do babies...

Or Funduses...

Or other weird OB specific things....

No offense to the OB nurses, its just not my comfort zone. (I'd rather have a vent)

if they pull us to med surg, we usually dont take a team, rather we float and are considered backup for ICU meaning we admit, do IV sticks, etc. If med surg is pulled to ICU, we give them the 2 most stable and not on drips because they cant admit in our unit.

Sounds rather DUMB to me at times, and the rules are generally tailored to fit who ever. We are not union, btw. ~Ivanna

We were crossed trained to float. We gave a list of areas we would be interested in. No one is required to float to ICU. We have rarely had floaters to L&D. If we have had them, there were from ICU and worked in recovery. I would have to refuse to be sent to ICU. That is totally out of my scope of nursing and learning. DANGEROUS!!! Sounds like they would like more lawyers visiting.

I work as a ER travel nurse at times, i have no float clauses put in there for a reason. So I can imagine that it will be about never that those positions will be filled. In fact I can guess that you will probably have more openings before you have those filled.

Rj

That is just crazy. They are basically saying ER and ICU RNs are interchangeable. I'm an ICU RN and there is NO way I would float to our ED and take a patient assignment. I am more than willing to float the to ED and transport, accu-checks, vitals, meds, etc for everybody just as they do when the ED RNs come to us.

I work L&D in a military hospital. When our census is low we invariably get pulled to other units to include ICU, which we are NOT crosstrained to do. However we rarely (if ever) get nurses to float to us, which I understand completely. We would never give a pt assignment to a nurse who was not trained in L&D.

I was floated to ICU last night initially to sit with a suicidal pt, but then I was pulled to take a pt assignment. I told the charge nurse I would help out on the floor with drawing labs, running labs, copying charts you name it but I did not feel comfortable taking a pt assignment. Her response was "Well you are a nurse, aren't you? We float all over the hospital all time." Ummm yup I am, an L&D nurse. Before I could point out that they do not float to L&D and we would never expect them to take a pt assignment she had walked away. So I go to the nurse that I would be working with in the ICU that I was not comfortable taking a pt assignement and proceeds to tell me to set up a room for a new admit that I would be taking. GRRRRRR. Well before I had a chance to protest and figure out what the next step would be the charge nurse had informed me she found a nurse who felt more comfortable in the ICU and I went back to L&D.