Models of nursing in Behavioral Health

[NJRN33]

Hello everyone

I work in an inpatient Psychiatric Unit in a large inner city teaching hospital. We have both involuntary and voluntary patients. We used the primary nursing as our model but now that we are 12 hour shifts that's really not working out for my unit. Please share your thoughts or what models do you use in your hospitals/units? My manager was thinking modular nursing model of care but I personally think that will not work as well because our patients are ambulatory and they are constantly pacing the hallways and for some reason I cannot see that working on my unit. Your thoughts, comments and recommendations are truly appreciated.

[Mandychelle79, ASN, RN]

ummm Im not sure what we use. We all take care of all the patients. We have a charge nurse and a medication nurse, but if a patient requests a medication and the med nurse isnt available the charge nurse will give it. Any patient can approach any staff to talk if needed, but we each have our own assignments. If we know a patient has a good rapport with a staff member we will try to assign that staff member but not always the case.

[psychnursie]

ummm Im not sure what we use. We all take care of all the patients. We have a charge nurse and a medication nurse, but if a patient requests a medication and the med nurse isnt available the charge nurse will give it. Any patient can approach any staff to talk if needed, but we each have our own assignments. If we know a patient has a good rapport with a staff member we will try to assign that staff member but not always the case.

same here

[greenbeanio]

We do primary nursing and I love it! The insanity of being "the med nurse" for 25 patients - OMG. I'm so glad I don't work in any of those places any more. I'd much rather be the primary nurse for 6-8 patients and chart on 3-4 with the counselor on my team charting on the rest.

Of course we all pitch in and help each other out, so if a patient wants their scheduled meds or some not-a-big-deal PRN like MoM or Tylenol or nicotine gum, we go ahead and medicate them for our co-worker if he/she is busy. And we listen to report on the whole team so that any one of us can fill in for the other if need be. But it's great to be able to focus on a smaller team in more depth.