Med Teams???

[Athena1970]

Hi:

We have recently instituted something in our ED called, "med teams". Has anyone else worked with this method???

We are a very busy ER and are staffed with only 3 RNs in our non-critical area (19 beds) and 4 RNs in our critical area (17 beds). We usually, but not always have a tech in each room.

What seems to happen frequently is that an RN will be assigned to 4-5 rooms, but if all those pts get d/c at once, then the RN will receive 4-5 new pts all at once................furthermore, if we have a long list of pts in the waiting room, we are expected to pull pts out of rooms and into the hall and then put new pts in the newly vacant rooms. This, of course, leaves our RNs with pts in the halls, and new pts SO usually in the "non-critical" area, the RNs are getting slammed all night when we are busy.........

We used to just place pts in rooms and then assign to whoever's turn it was to take a pt which at least leveled out just one RN having to do a big workup on 2-3 new pts at once.............

I don't see any "team" with one RN ending up with several new pts at a time and the rest of the RNs too busy to help.

Needless to say, particularly w/o a tech working, everyone is stressed, and I am just wondering if this is what med teams is like at other facilities.

Comments???

[alkaleidi]

Forgive me if I missed something -- I don't think you actually said what these "med teams" do. Please finish your post?

[Larry77, RN]

Huh???

So you don't take room assignments but take turns on getting a new pt???

[Athena1970]

Hi again:

That is exactly what I am trying to figure out as well as my co-workers. We are supposedly using a "med team" model, but as far as anyone can see, all that is happening is our assignments are getting more difficult. I think when the hospital started it, they were thinking that they were going to assign a larger amount of patients between two RNs and a tech and perhaps a LPN. BUT, there is no extra tech, nor a LPN being provided, and what has happened is that each RN is now responsible for more patients with less help.

Prior to this, no, we were not assigned rooms because it seems that without fail, on our shift anyway, the 4 rooms you would be assigned to in the non-critical area, would all be d/c at once leaving you open to 4-5 new patients all at once, and you always have patients in the halls. So the RN with the fewest patients would get the next newest patient and so forth.

Now we are supposed to listen to report for 8-9 rooms, and then we are assigned 4-5 out of the 8-9 but are supposed to know what is going on with all pts in the 8-9 rooms. (this is so we can cover for breaks that we never get anyway) I think they are trying to do team nursing in the ER, but w/o a sufficient # of staff, both RNs and techs.

The other thing is that the 2nd shift does not use this room assignment so when you come into work, you have to listen to report from several different nurses because the patients are all over the place (in halls and rooms).....so it makes it difficult because rather than just take the pt assignment that one RN has, you have to get into your "med team" (which is not really anything other than a room assignment as far as I can tell)

I was hoping that some other ER nurses used "med teams" and could inform me of what it is supposed to be like.......since someone at my hospital came up with this concept and none of us really understand it.

thanks.

[edmia, BSN, RN]

Well, it sounds like you need to ask your nurse manager to give you guys an in-service on the new policy #1 and

#2 - you need to be filing that form... what's it called? unsafe assignment form? oh gosh, the words just left my brain . The form you file when you feel your assignment exceeds the amount of patients you can safely care for.