I am just curious about what goes on at other hospitals. I have been a nurse for 10 years and have worked in the same hospital all that time.
Just lately our hospital has made it mandatory to float to other departments if our med-surg census is down. If you refuse to float you will get an occurance which eventually will get you fired.
It doesn't matter if you have had training in the other dept. because they say you will only be called a "helper" and will not be held responsible. But doesn't it say in the nurse practice act they you are required to act in a nursing capacity no matter what?
We have a geriatric lock down psych unit that is never staffed accordingly and we are constantly being made to float to this unit. I hate psych and I am not trained in psych. The patients can be violent and more than one employee is sent to the ER with injuries every month.
We have voiced our concerns about the mandatory float and we were told that we all have bad attitudes and if we don't like to just leave.
They have also told us that this is the way all of the other hospitals operate and that it helps to cut costs.
So what about the rest of you? Is this the norm at your facility?
The management at my hospital in my opinion is terrible. On the medsurg floor, my nursing manager puts out a schedule with absolutely NO nursing assistants sceduled or NO HUC scheduled because she gives all of them the same requested day off.
She expects the RN to cover all aspects of the floor just as the other depts. expect the med surg RNs to cover all depts.
We are also expected to recover post op same day surgery patients on the med surg floor if the surgery scheduled is running late. The surgery nurses will bring out the post op recovery patients, give up minimal report, and then go home.
We are supposed to watch recovery patients along with our other patients. Just a couple of months ago I had an ortho patient start bleeding from his surgical site. He had his forearm pinned with huge screws sticking out of his arm and other apparatus I have never seen before.
I had to undress the site, replace the dressing, and I sent him home hoping I did the right thing. I gave him instructions to return to ER if he had any more bleeding, but I was clearly not comfortable with my lack of experience as an OR nurse.
Where I am,we have "sister units" and those are the only units it is mandatory to work on if pulled. My med unit is sister with 2 other med floors and a surgical in pt floor. RN's in ICU ,tele and ER are "sisters". Peds,and L&D are sisters. I don't think OR or PACU or day surgery have sister floor but the RN's there are pretty much working together. If you refuse to go to a sister unit, you can be sent home without pay. NM always calls to inform you before the shift starts. You can be asked to go to other units but if don't feel comfortable can say No without any problems. We do have a float pool but that staff signs up for the shifts they want and then are assigned after they get to work.The float pool works per deim without any vacation,ect. They are paid $6.00 hr more. If full time RN agrees to be pulled to another unit,they receive pulled pay,$5.00. No extra for going to sister unit. But at lest you know the floor and the type of pt's. We do self schedule and our NM is careful about not posting extra help ,knows that puts you "up for grabs to be floated or pulled. But she generally has someone to call in if needs for busy times. We don't have many call-ins. Generally try to trade with someone if know need to be off or are sick.
Our floor has been woefully short staffed for about the past 3 months. (one nurse passed away, and another had to move out of state due to a family emergency) All the nurses here have been picking up extra shifts to help with staffing, but for the first month and a half or so, we had the hardest time getting coverage from the float pool.
Our unit is a dedicated CTS stepdown unit, we very rarely take off-service patients (we have only 16 beds), and in times where our census is low, we float pretty much everywhere in the hospital (except L&D, Mother/Baby, NICU, and PICU)
My gripe with them today is that I had scheduled myself for an extra shift this evening (in the team-spirit of things) knowing that only 3 nurses were on the schedule. When it looked like our census was going to be low enough that only 3 nurses would be needed, I asked to be cancelled as opposed to working overtime, and was told that if census was low, they would float me rather than cancel me.
Now, the positive thing is that I would have been making time and a half for 8 hours of that float. But really. I'll work extra to help out my floor, but when it comes to floating somewhere else and getting overtime or staying home and cleaning house?
I think I'd actually rather scrub the grout in my bathroom with a toothbrush.
Luckily, we got some unexpected transfers, and I got to work on my unit. The grout can wait.
Your NM sounds wonderful. Our NM is constantly short scheduling us or going out of her way to find out which other dept. needs help so that she can float her people.
I am not sure the purpose for this unless it's just to make herself look good in the eyes of admin.
I can guarantee that she is not going to stand up for any of us on the floor when we have a problem with other dept. or with policy changes.
It is really frustrating to know that your NM is working against you and not for you.
hdhnurse
34 Posts
The management at my hospital in my opinion is terrible. On the medsurg floor, my nursing manager puts out a schedule with absolutely NO nursing assistants sceduled or NO HUC scheduled because she gives all of them the same requested day off.
She expects the RN to cover all aspects of the floor just as the other depts. expect the med surg RNs to cover all depts.
We are also expected to recover post op same day surgery patients on the med surg floor if the surgery scheduled is running late. The surgery nurses will bring out the post op recovery patients, give up minimal report, and then go home.
We are supposed to watch recovery patients along with our other patients. Just a couple of months ago I had an ortho patient start bleeding from his surgical site. He had his forearm pinned with huge screws sticking out of his arm and other apparatus I have never seen before.
I had to undress the site, replace the dressing, and I sent him home hoping I did the right thing. I gave him instructions to return to ER if he had any more bleeding, but I was clearly not comfortable with my lack of experience as an OR nurse.
Thankfully he was okay.