nursemaa

gotcha. i do understand that scripting is difficult for most of us to accept. i always ask "is there anything else i can do for you", but the "i have the time" part does sound a little weird. i do have some scripts that i use, such as "how can i h...

Hourly rounding is not really a new concept- it was considered standard practice when I entered nursing in the late 70's. If a patient is sick enough to be in the hospital, someone should be checking on him/her hourly. And, it is just good patient ...

The problem with discipline is, the person standing by the cup, or angio, or whatever else may not be the one who left it there. It's hard for me to tell exactly who is responsible for the mess. I too feel like "mom"- always picking up after everyo...

Proactively notifying manager of busy shift/multiple codes, any attempts to diffuse angry patients or just heads up in case problems later reported very helpful for Mgr to have facts at hand in dealing with issue next shift /day. Speaking as a manag...

American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition empathy [(em-puh-thee)] Identifying oneself completely with an object or person, sometimes even to the point of responding physically, as when, watching a baseball player swing at ...

Most places have this policy- if it isn't workers comp or FMLA, it counts. They usually have a limit on how many times you can call off before disciplinary action is taken. If you have a chronic health problem, it's a good idea to get intermittent ...

at our hospital, they visited every nursing unit and the magnet surveyors (not management) selected which staff they had breakfast/lunch with. they were given a list of names of all staff working those days and the surveyors went down the list and p...

Probably referring to a matrix system of staffing. You take your hours per pt day (theoretically based on average acuity), and use that to determine how many staff members you need for each census point, or number of pts. There's a formula for that...

Usually they discuss things like attendance, attiude, teamwork, dependability to complete assignments, and any other issues (good or bad) that we want the other manager to know. Some places award the job based on seniority (the manager doesn't get t...

Hmm...seems strange that they would only hold one meeting, and penalize those who are on sick leave or vacation, or may not know about it. Are you sure you didn't misunderstand? I've known of places that marked you down on evals or something if you...

Need some advice. Do you all have any ideas for getting staff to get involved in their unit beyond just coming in for their shift? I hear staff complain alot that there are many problems in nursing, yet I can't get them to become part of the soluti...

On behalf of all of us managers on this board....THANK YOU ! We really do just as much work as the staff do, it's just different work. We're all part of the team, we just have different roles.

33 bed med surg unit: typical staffing when full is 5 RN, 2 LPN (days and nights), with 4 NA on days, 2 NA on eves and 1-2 NA on nights. Sometimes go with 3 RNs and 3 LPNs if there aren't 5 RNs available. LPNs do assessments, PO meds etc. RN only ...

All of the above statements make sense. I think you have greatly misunderstood me. I definitely do listen to my staff. Many great ideas and solutions to problems have arisen out of those hallway and coffee break conversations. I don't discount the...

I can't speak for any others, but for me it's not a matter of asking them to do my job. It's simply that I really do believe that when the team works together on a project or problem, the outcome is usually better than if one person (me) decides eve...

1. Many couples have met at work- not unusual, not necessarily unprofessional. 2. If he's married, then he's a pig and she should dump him, but unless I'm a close friend who can talk to her about it, it's really none of my business. 3. The patient...

One thing I'm not crazy about in regards to unions is that you lose some flexibility and control. For instance, where I work the posted job always is awarded by seniority- the manager can't choose the best candidate. So sometimes the person who get...

We had to do breast exams but not pelvic exams. The teacher stood by and watched- it was disgusting. We wrote to the dean to complain about that and several other things- the teacher was removed from teaching that class.

I use this method too. We don't usually have any trouble, except occasionally everyone wants the same day off so there's no nurse on the schedule! I then give that day off according to seniority, making sure we have our complement of nurses schedul...

Thanks, good ideas. I have shared with them the financial and patient-outcome ramifications of mislabeling. The clear box idea sounds interesting. The labels print pretty quickly after the order is entered, so unless it's a stat I think they shou...

Labeling at the bedside is the best way to prevent errors. I've found though that many nurses draw the blood, stick the tubes in their pocket and carry them around until the lab printer produces the label- VERY bad practice on several levels!! I ha...

It's probably not impossible to go directly into home health, but I think a year or so of med-surg is essential, and sometimes required. The thing is, if you're working in a hospital at first, you have lots of support in terms of more experienced nu...

My mother died a couple of weeks ago. Before she got the morphine, she had been in terrible pain and frantic because she couldn't breathe. The morphine allowed her to rest and slip away quietly. So yes, I belive in it- it was terrible to see her s...

I totally agree! Many times our patient sat surveys come back with comments like "the nurse acted as if I was bothering her". A great nurse understands that the patients are the reason we're there, and does not feel "bothered" when they ask for so...

Because C Dif results in sometimes rather explosive diarrhea, the spores from the bacteria can heavily infect the whole environment. It is not safe to have these patients share a room with another patient, because it's almost impossible for the non-...