Nurse III

What do you mean? Are you saying your staff are underperforming, or they don't understand the qualifications for a Nurse II?

On 10/25/2019 at 11:06 PM, 16BitSalt said:

What do you mean? Are you saying your staff are underperforming, or they don't understand the qualifications for a Nurse II?

There is a combination of both. For those underperforming most are nurses within the past 2-3 years who have been N1L3 who have been promoted to N2, and yet are not performing at N2 level. I am just wondering what is the most basic way to explain what a N2 should be doing? I have said it, and even had my supervisor explain in the case I am not stating it as clearly as I should.

22 hours ago, special1rn said:

There is a combination of both. For those underperforming most are nurses within the past 2-3 years who have been N1L3 who have been promoted to N2, and yet are not performing at N2 level. I am just wondering what is the most basic way to explain what a N2 should be doing? I have said it, and even had my supervisor explain in the case I am not stating it as clearly as I should.

It's hard to say without knowing exactly how you explained it to your nurses, but for what it's worth I can tell you how my nurse manager explained it to us (keep in mind I'm just a student and NA, but my supervisor wrote us a great email about the pay scales)

I'm in the VANEEP program. I'm in a two year ASN program for nursing, and I will begin at the VA after graduating next May and passing my boards at a Nurse I. This makes sense, I will only have a two year degree and I have NO prior nursing experience outside of being a CNA. I am a shiny new nurse that will require a lot of help and supervision for at least a few months.

Nurse II is a little more of a gray area: From what I understand you usually need to have a BSN, for starters. You're also expected to show leadership, and create/improve on plans of care for patients, as well as hospital operations. Some examples I was given are: properly adjusting staff based on patient acuity (if you're a charge nurse), recognizing subtle patient cues that a new nurse may not pick up on (such as a comatose patient with improper pain management), or identifying unit/department performance deficiencies.

It's not very clear cut and I'm not sure who the decision ultimately falls on, but those were some examples I was given.