LynMichelRN

David , Thank you so much for your response and the links, they are very helpful. Lyn

I work in a small hospital and we admit our own patients to our unit. Our basic admission consists of a Surgical Admission assessment which includes things like past medical history, a small physical assessment, a medication reconciliation sheet etc. Our hospital is now talking about adding a DVT risk assessment to the admission. Personally, I think it is unecessary, since the DVT risk assessment on inpatient is performed so the nurse can implement some interventions. I don't think we should be putting ted hose, scd's and recommending anticoagulant therapy on outpatients. I would really like to know what other hospitals or centers on doing for an admission. Also, we still give enemas, a few doctors have agreed to let us do a study where we don't tell them if the patient had an enema or not to see the difference. I am interested to know if everyone else out there has stopped giving enemas. This is a small town and change takes forever! Thanks for any input you can give!

I completely understand where you are coming from. I feel that way almost everyday. I work on a Surgical floor of a small hospital so we get every type of surgery including outpatients. Our hospital is trying to initiate team nursing and they are phasing out the nurses aides. We have been so short staffed lately that sometimes each nurse will have 7-8 patients with absolutely no support staff. Our nurse manager and director have worked the floor and given baths on those days. I hate days like that because I do feel like a serious mistake is going to happen and I feel like I am not giving good care. I have been a nurse for 25 years so I thought it was just that I was getting too old but maybe it's just nursing. My day usually starts out with 4-5 patients and then we have surgeries coming back, there are always discharges and admissions in your group so by the end of the day you many have 10 patients who have rotated through your group that you have to chart on. If I have 5-6 patients and an LPN or CNA working with me then I can pretty much handle it but it also depends on the type of patients you have that day etc. Just wanted to tell you, you aren't alone!