JJGRN

I work in an IMC unit, and we have all of our patients on tele & continuous pulse ox monitoring; my understanding of progressive care is that it is telemetry only.

Are the evaluations to help them improve their performance? Maybe once you get the results of the things your department can improve upon, ask them individually how they can make a difference to improve the things that need to be improved. You could incorporate that into their goals or future performance evaluations.

I agree with KatKonk, your rights were violated!! As a manager, I cannot ask any of my employees if they are taking medications or have any sort of medical condition. You should file a formal complaint with your HR department and/or a lawyer. Drug testing is allowed for any reasoning including suspicious or changed behavior, but is usually done by Employee Health and subsequent questioning regarding health issues can be discussed, as well as your rights as it pertains to applying for and receiving FMLA, etc.

Our hospital has a similar intermittent FMLA policy. It is very frustrating to the staff that are left working short. We try to stay on top of the FMLA absences and once they reach their 12 weeks, their positions are posted. The other thing we started looking for trends... if they always use FMLA on Fridays or weekends, we can show a pattern of use and discipline them for behavior.

Why don't you present the data to your staff, and ask them what they think of the poor results.... Sometimes the surveys can be very misleading.... I received some results that were really low regarding teamwork/working with others. I was shocked! I thought we had a great cohesive team that worked well together. Come to find out, when the nurses read the question in the order it was presented, they were thinking of the relationships with other departments, not among our unit.

Wow... This is a bad situation all the way around. Not only was the cursing an example of lateral violence... but it sounds like Jill has no respect for your authority in saying to not get involved in black women issues because it will come around to get you. That sounds like a threat to me, and she should be fired. Can you give us the follow up of what happened in HR?

We also have unit based educators within our organization. The educators are responsible for coordinating orientation, unit based inservices, weekly tracers, chart reviews of certain quality improvement initiatives, just in time education, and they also get involved in service line and hospital wide education initiatives, such as hospital orientation, CPR/ACLS instructors, clinical skills fairs, etc. I think its good that you want to have a clearly defined role for your position. It can be frustrating when you have people in the same job title having difference responsibilities. Good luck to you.:)

I have to disagree. Would this behavior be more intolerable if the patient were harmed by the neglect of this nurse? In a just culture, you examine the action of the person... did they know their behavior was wrong? Is there a hospital policy against texting on the job? If she were driving a car and had an accident, is that okay? I agree with the posters who suggested the student should let her instructor know, and leave it at that. The instructor then has an obligation to either notify the manager of the unit or the school faculty to communicate back to the nursing staff.

I went to UoP and received my BSN. As you said, earning my degree was a lot of work and by no means a "cake walk." I would have continued on at UoP for my MSN, but my employer offered more tuition reimbursement to go to University of MD's online MS program. Many colleges are using an online format for BSN and graduate degrees, and I don't think these degrees are viewed any differently than degrees from a traditional program. Congratulations on completing your BSN!!

In our hospital, all new critical care nurses must have ACLS within the first year of hire, experienced nurses should have on hire. Since we have this policy in effect in all critical care areas, when staff are floated to other units, we're covered. The only exception is that occassionally telemetry will use a med/surg nurse, but the monitor tech is responsible for interpreting the strips, and the charge nurse co-signs them.

Well said. Imagine how confused our patients and families must be, seeing different caregivers coming in to the room with or without PPE. I've actually heard one patient remind her doctor that he needs to wear a gown and gloves when entering her room. It was great!

I don't think the ANA membership would enhance your resume that much IMHO, but one thing I would look for is if you've accepted leadership roles in your current position. Are you involved in any councils/committees? Are you a positive role model on your unit? I would be looking for how you are using your leadership abilities when on the unit either running charge, precepting, or getting involved in unit improvement activities.

We are currently looking at our discharge practices because of the impact it will have on our bedflow. Right now, we do not have a standard for the time between written order and out the door. We do continue to provide care until the pt physically leave our hospital.... we recently had a patient fall while waiting for his daughter to pick him up. We got him dressed, stopped our fall precaution measures and BAM! Luckily he wasn't injured and was still able to be discharged. We are trying to implement a standard discharge time so that patients and families are ready earlier in the day for discharge; and getting Mds in the hospital sooner so that they can write the orders earlier in the day.

Michael, When we first started swabbing all of our ICU admissions, we also swabbed 50 ICU nurses because we heard the same excuses from them about not needing to wear PPE "because we were all positive anyway." We only had 1 come back positive. While staph is found on skin, resistant staph is not. Why would you want to expose yourself, your other patients, and your family to this MDRO?

I don't believe that Magnet Hospitals get a higher reimbursement rate, but Magnet hospitals do have to show that their quality performance is above the national average. So if your hospital or state has a pay for performance reimbursement system, they may eventually get reimbursed at a higher rate because they perform better on their quality measures.