ernurse1993

We very seldom give phenergan anymore for nausea, way to many side effects. Yes, we do give zofran po to small children. We also cut it in half. It works great, no needles for the little ones and frequently they can hold down popsicles within 30 minutes of recieving the med!! It is expensive, but if you can afford it why not!

We have paramedics in our ED. I live in Illinois. They can give any of the meds that they can give out in the field, we have expanded their drugs to include tylenol & motrin, phenergan IV & Toradol IV & non medicated IV fluids. We are looking at expanding their formulary to include zofran and dilaudid, prior to adding new meds they have to take a med test that shows they understand what they are giving and potential side effects. They assist with trauma's and codes. They also perform EKG's, IV starts, foleys, NG tubes, transport pt to the floors. They don't triage pt's as Joint Comission states has to be an RN. They also can't hang blood or give IV antibiotics. They are a real asset to our department. Hope this helps

We can use the lido in my department, but no one does. And from personal experience I had an outpatient procedure done once and the anesthesiologist used the lidocaine which burned like fire and I still felt the IV stick on top of it all. Since that time I have always said no to lidocaine!!

We not only have to ask them about suicidal/homicidal thoughts, and if they feel safe in there home's. But if they have access to enough food, if they need any assistance at home, and if they live with anyone!! I think JC needs to walk in our shoes for a 12 hour shift and ask over 200 people those questions every day!! We have removed a lot of the questions out of the triage portion of our documentation, but it has to be completed in our assessments!

I think we are enabling the people on public aid!! They have the money for the nice clothes, their smokes, and food, but heaven forbid they have to buy their child tylenol!! They always want a script for it!! Oh, and please call it in or fax it because we just don't have the time to wait for the pharmacy to fill it!! If we as nurses try to educate the parents on the risks of smoking around the children, or that a bottle of generic tylenol is less than a pack of cigarettes they complain to administration about how rude we are!! And we are going to have a "national healthcare" plan, good luck with that!!

Thanks for the replies. We do have a meeting scheduled for the end of the week with all the departments involved. Right now we have the pt's c/c, initial assessment, meds given, last set of vitals,monitor rhythm, code status, infection control issues, admitting Dr and dx, We still give phone reports on the complicated pt's and pt's going to ICU & CVU. There is also an area to free text any pending tests, surgery, or special needs. Hopefully we can work it out. Because it saves us 20-30 minutes of phone tag trying to call the floors and find a nurse willing to take report.

Does anyone fax their admission reports to the floor? And if you do how is that going. What all is listed in the faxed report. We just started approximately 2 weeks ago and they floors are just ripping us apart. We aren't giving them enough information. Any help I can get would be appreciatated. We have a meeting next week with all the departments to see what it is they exactly want.

I work in a Level II trauma center in Illinois. My hospital just announced last week that they would be phasing out the LPN's over the next 3 years. They are offering to assist them in getting placed into an RN completion program, they also offer tuition and book payment, with the agreement to stay and work for a certain period of time, they are also offering them one 8 hour day of pay per week for classes or study paid. I know a lot of people don't have the desire to go back to school, but I think they are offering a decent option for them to look at.

We have a policy that no patients can be transferred to the floor and report can't be give during "quiet time" it is supposed to be from 7AM-7:30AM, 3PM-3:30 PM and again at 7PM. We now call it "happy hour" :wink2: as 15 minutes before the hour and another 15 minutes after quiet time ends we are lucky to get anyone to answer the phone!! We can't tell the ambulances coming in it's quiet time and I sure don't want to be the one to go out to the lobby where there are 20 people waiting and explain the whole "quiet time" to them.

I work in the Ed and it is very difficult getting pt's to the floor at shift change. But a lot of times that is when the beds all the sudden become clean and available. It does seem like a lot of games are played on how long can we stall before we are forced to give a bed to the ED. We also have nurses in the ED that will hold their pt so they won't get the next new pt. Bottom line it is all about patient satisfaction. None of them want to lay on our uncomfortable bed's in the ED, for that matter they really don't want to stay in the hospital period. Well most people don't:) But we really need to do what we can to make them feel comfortable. After all they are our job security! We just started faxing reports to the floor this past week, I'm not sure how well that will work, it does free me up from being put on hold for 15-20 minutes everytime I try to call report.

We also have all those questions in the triage document, it is hard for some of our nurses to leave it incomplete. I say the nurse doing the primary assessment can ask all the mandatory questions when doing their primary assessment, hooking them up to the monitors and starting the IV's. We are very good at multi tasking. I just tell my patients, ok it is time for all the mandatory questions that we are required to ask them. Some pt's get mad others just go along with the questions.

I live in central Illinois and the pay range for RN's is 18.50-27.50 for day shift. That doesn't include any shift differential, or charge pay. We have no increase in pay based on certification or if you have your BSN.

We have a small drink area in my department. I don't think it is JACHO that mandates no drinks at the nurses station, I think it is the Public Health Department rules.:cheers:

We currently have a 5:1 ratio in a 20 bed acute care ED. The ratio in urgent care is 5:1, and after fighting management for 2 years we finally got approval to increase our staffing, but not until we lost many good nurses due to the unsafe staffing of 5:1. I couldn't imagine what it would be like with 8 patients in an acute setting, unsafe and dangerous. I too would be afraid of risking my license working in a place with that high of ratio

I had a child arrive via EMS with a parent reporting the child had a seizure, after assisting them to the bed the mom came in the room and said the seizure never happened they just needed a ride to the hospital for another reason!!! What a waste of resources, and of course they had the gold card so they don't even get a bill!!!