Nurse III

Specialties Government

Published

Specializes in CARDIOVASCULAR CRITICAL CARE.

I am wondering how to best explain to nursing staff functions of a nurse II. I have plenty of staff nurses who essentially just show up to work, they won't do anything else aside from that. And yet they don't clearly understand there performance rating is based on that "performance".

Specializes in Behavioral Health/Psychiatric Nursing.

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

Specializes in CARDIOVASCULAR CRITICAL CARE.
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.

Specializes in Behavioral Health/Psychiatric Nursing.
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.

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