Question Please! Icu Nurses

[l.rae]

Is there any policy or standard requiring that an ICU be able to accept an admit within a 30 minute time frame? If this is so and anyone can provide a link it would be most helpful. I'm sure there are exceptions as codes etc. My co-worker tells me this is a standard national guideline. Thanks

[jethrobodine]

somebody is feeding you a line of bull. this is a common tact used by people trying to convince you that the action they want to follow is somehow validated or mandatory according to some faux "authority". stick to your guns and unless your institution has some actual mandated rule regarding this type of practise follow your own common sense.

[JennieO]

Well, if your hospital allows two patients per bed and allows pt to go to ICU without orders written yet, perhaps. Where I work, the is only one body per bed and if you EVER bring a pt. to the ICU without orders you are in deep do-do.

[gradcare, LPN]

30 min from accept to admit at all times... yeah right when the staffing fairy waves her magic wand and you are staffed over what you need, when the bed allocation fairy has gotten beds for your discharges in the wards and those wards actually have beds.... Look it can be done but asking for that as an industry standard at all times... cant be done.

[NurseyPoo, RN]

This is not true. I do not know where your friend heard this one...??? And, if you dare bring a pt without orders you better hope there is a bed for you as well.

[meandragonbrett]

Not unless you have a staffing and a bed control fairy

[kayaknurse]

I've not heard of this as a policy or a standard. What I have seen done, however, in some hospitals, is the maintenance of a "code bed." We keep at least one bed (and hopefully a nurse!) free among all our ICU's, so if someone codes they have a place to go to immediately.

[ICURNinIL]

I've never heard of such a thing. Now where is the patient coming from? Is it a floor transfer or an ER admit? If it's an RRT call or a code, then yes, you get them usually within a half hour or so, but you also have an ICU nurse with that patient from the time the RRT or code blue is called and they are being monitored.

As far as a standard, it is our hospital policy that once a patient has orders to transfer to ICU, they must be transferred immediately or have an ICU nurse in the room to take care of them.

[LadyNASDAQ]

No such rule.