Questions for an assignment. Appreciate any help you can give thanks!

gwenith, BSN, RN · Oct 9, 2005

Hello everyone. I am a RN to BSN student in Illinois, USA. I have a few questions for a RN practicing outside of US and wound appreciate anyone taking time to answer them. Thanks!
1.Which country are you practising in?

Australia:D

2. Do you have a specialty area of practice? I work in home health (visiting nurse) currently.

Intensive Care

3. What are your current issues of concern such as understaffing or mandatory overtime?

We staff to a computerised nurse/patient dependency system called "trendcare". You input key indicators for patient acuity and it will predict the number of staff required to safely staff that shift. It isn't perfect by a long shot but it is better than the alternative.

We don't have mandatory overtime. (At least at present - hoping the IR reforms don't include this little gem) Basically I think if it were to be tried here it would result in two words being spoken - GENERAL STRIKE!!

4.Do you have any issues that are culturally related?

Not too sure what you are after here - do you mean the Australian culture or dealing with a variety of multicultural patients?

5. What level of education do you have?

Minimum level to be registered in Australia is a Bachelor of Nursing. However there are still a lot of people around who trained in the hospital system and they have the equivalent of an ADN.

mstngsly · Oct 10, 2005

Australia:D
Intensive Care
We staff to a computerised nurse/patient dependency system called "trendcare". You input key indicators for patient acuity and it will predict the number of staff required to safely staff that shift. It isn't perfect by a long shot but it is better than the alternative.
The computerized system would probably be a much better alternative than what they do here...try to guess the acuity. Where I work you have a scheduled 8 hour day. If you are on call that night (which we take turns) and someone goes home from the hospital with IV therapy you must do that evening admission also. Sometimes its at 11pm at night. You remain on call until the next morning. The other kicker is when it's your weekend you are on call and working from 8am Friday to 8 am the following Monday.:icon_roll
We don't have mandatory overtime. (At least at present - hoping the IR reforms don't include this little gem) Basically I think if it were to be tried here it would result in two words being spoken - GENERAL STRIKE!!
Not too sure what you are after here - do you mean the Australian culture or dealing with a variety of multicultural patients? I do mean Australian culture for example if they believe in not taking treatments such as receiving blood for example. Over here people of Moorman faith will not accept blood transfusions even if it means certain death.
Minimum level to be registered in Australia is a Bachelor of Nursing. However there are still a lot of people around who trained in the hospital system and they have the equivalent of an ADN.

I have the ADN degree now and am almost done with my classes to have my BSN. The main difference that I see between the two degrees is that the ADN was more like clinical training and the BSN schooling is more about paper writing and being professional and culturally aware.

talaxandra · Oct 16, 2005

1.Which country are you practising in?

Australia

2. Do you have a specialty area of practice?

I'm a clinical nurse specialist in endocrinology, and work on a mixed medical specialty ward

3. What are your current issues of concern such as understaffing or mandatory overtime?

There's no mandatory overtime, and we have a legally enforced nurse-patient ratio. My ward has recently had a significant number of staff drop from full time to part time, and a few other staff have left altogether, so that shifts are now up to 50% bank and agency staff, which increases the workload of (particularly senior) ward nurses. To combat this, admin has decided to employ more division 2 nurses, which further stresses the rest of the staff.

As gwenith said, if the currently proposed IR changes come in, there's going to be a strong and coordinated industrial action campaign.

4. Do you have any issues that are culturally related?

Not personally :) I work in a highly multicultural area, but there are lots of services available to help with any issues arising from this - interpreter services, cultural liason, Koori liason officer etc

5. What level of education do you have?

I'm hospital trained, so I have a certificate of nursing. I also have a grad dip in bioethics, and masters degrees in health ethics and in social health.

melanie2968 · Apr 26, 2006

1.Which country are you practising in?

Australia

2. Do you have a specialty area of practice?

I'm currently working in Nursing Administration

3. What are your current issues of concern such as understaffing or mandatory overtime?

There's no mandatory overtime and we also use the "TrendCare" patient acuity system.

4. Do you have any issues that are culturally related?

I am not sure what you are getting at here but due to the nursing shortage we are empolying more international nurses. All staff are working extremely hard at welcoming them and assisting them to fit into the hosptial culture.

5. What level of education do you have?

I have a Batchelor or Nursing.