Quick stepdown to ICU transition

[anewsns]

At my job on a stepdown, we are soon to have 8 ICU covid beds. Supposedly, we will have ICU nurses take care of the vents and any pressors while we assume the rest of the care. However, we have the opportunity to cross train in the ICU for 6 shifts currently, which I may do to be prepared. Has anyone else had similar experiences and what was it like?

[adventure_rn, MSN, NP]

I think it's great that they're giving you orientation shifts. Depending on how hard your area gets hit, you may never actually fill those beds with ICU patients. However, it's better to get the ICU training and not need it than to need the training and not have it. The 'team nursing' approach (where one nurse is responsible for certain aspects of the patient's care and a different nurse is responsible for other parts) is pretty common right now.

There was another similar post a few weeks ago. I wrote a pretty long, detailed response about why hospitals should be doing exactly what your hospital is trying to do.