NICU unit secretary at nights?

[mee9mee9]

what does a unit secretary do at nights on NICU floor?

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

Pretty much the same as the other shifts except for making appointments. But each unit is different. Ours man the door ( locked unit), answer phones, file, put things in charts, make sure our patient labels are done, make admission and discharge folders.

[TU RN, DNP, CRNA]

Many secretaries have ancillary duties delegated to them from their managers, so the roles vary widely. Our clerks will put admitted patients charts together, restock some of the gloves and isolation packs outside patient's rooms, call down for needed supplies and equipment, and run to the lab/blood bank for the nurses. There seems to be a lot of down time for clerks where I work, and I've gotta say it's one of the busiest units in the hospital. Now this could be due to the outstanding proficiency they have for their duties, or it could be due to the relatively down-paced nature of their work, but either way I'm often jealous of them

P.S. I don't work in the NICU.

[THELIVINGWORST, ASN, RN]

I was a UC before I was an RN and in comparison it is soooo boring!! PP hit it on the head and it's basically being a receptionist/runner.

[mee9mee9]

is it 8 or 12 hour shift?

[RNperdiem, RN]

Unit secretaries are being phased out in favor of cross-trained CNAs who do unit secretary duty at my hospital. The phone still does ring at night, visitors still need to be let in(open visitation in my ICUs).

Nurses have the secretary print forms, order supplies, and help with admission paperwork.

[mee9mee9]

thing is all this job post required is customer service and bls certification. i have completed my cna training and in the process of getting cna license

[prmenrs, RN]

It depends on the size and level of the unit--a 60 bed Level 4 unit needs a clerk. And another ancillary support person or maybe 2. I worked in a Level 2 10 bed unit. We didn't have a clerk of our own. We were entitled to 'borrow' from Mother-Baby if we had a sick baby until the transport team came, but it was major tough to get them to do anything--we'd have to tell them to answer the phone and make copies of the charts for the Transport.

Also, the only other admitting clerk in the whole hospital was in the ED, so our area (L&D, Nursery and MBU) had our own admitting clerk 24/7 to take care of all that paperwork. Just try and get an XRay, labs, or pharmacy w/o a Medical Record #. No way, no matter how sick the child was. If they weren't in the computer, forget it!

[Bortaz, MSN, RN]

The only one we had during my time on night shift got fired and was never replaced.

[katierobin23]

My unit wouldn't be able to function at night without them. They input all of our admission orders, order any blood products that we need, are able to run to the blood bank/pharmacy/lab if we need them to, allow visitors in and out, do sibling screenings, and direct parents' calls to our spectralink phones among many other things. Some nights there is a lot of downtime, but other nights they barely have time to go to the bathroom. We usually have two on, we can work with one if we have to, but it's rough.

Added bonus, the nighttime secretaries make wonderful cuddlers for our NAS babies when they do have some downtime :)

[cph1993]

I've worked as a unit secretary in the NICU for about 3 months now and most of the time there isn't that much to it. When I first started, one of the charge nurses described the night secretaries duties by saying that the night secretary cleans/organizes the unit after it has been messed up during the day shift where there is less down time. My duties include putting stuff in charts, labeling charts, putting up supplies etc. A lot of the nurses have told me they started off as unit secretaries in other hospitals which is good news for me since I will be starting nursing school in the fall. I love hearing about the various conditions/issues with new admits and I've learned so much in such a short amount of time working there.