Rant

This whole post annoys me--especially switching the shift on you like that, even if it is "only" once a week. What if you were a single parent and didn;t have childcare for those hours? Or you took care of an elderly family member. Or had another job? Or even more rare--a life? That's not right...

Sorry you're going through this. Do you have a union?

Sorry you're going through that. I really respect you ER nurses; I couldn't do it. Hope things improve - quickly.

Did she monitor you from home or Did the ER Doc go behind your back and call her up complaining you werent getting the patients back fast enough, or that you were short handed.ER docs are well known for being manipulative and passive aggressive in nature.

Ok ladies and gentlemen,

I haven't made very many posts on here yet, but tonight I have to rant. I just got home (0100) after my 12 hour 11a-11p shift. We had a fairly nice day today until about 1800 when the bottom fell out of triage and EMS both as the ER is known to do. For whatever reason, our director (i.e. nurse manager) decided to monitor our tracking/charting system from home tonight. At approx 2200, she took it upon herself to call the charge nurse and chew him out for not opening our overflow rooms; (we were already working short staffed) she wanted him to have our dedicated EMS nurse (we have a nurse who answers the EMS phone/radio and directs traffic) open up overflow rooms and take pts. Keep in mind that this particular nurse would be leaving an hour later at 2300 and would not have a nurse coming in to relieve her. :angryfireThe director then proceded to call the triage nurse and tell her that she was not triaging people fast enough.:angryfire We staff triage with 1 LVN to greet pts at the desk and 2 RNs to triage. Tonight, we got an ICU nurse floated down to help out; they put her in triage because she doesn't know how to chart in our system or how the ER flows. She got a brief 10 minute "here's how you triage" from the other triage RN. This place is driving me insane!!! This is all on top of an email that we received last week, saying that due to increased pt volume after moving into our new ER (they claim they didn't see this one coming), the staff members who work 11a-11p will now be required to work one 3p-3a shift a week to help cover. No "hey why don't we discuss this with the staff first"; no, just "this will go into effect the next schedule" that comes out in 2 weeks. Why just the 11a-11p? Why can't they rotate it so that all the shifts have to take turns working an odd shift? Oh wait, that would be fair and make sense.

Sounds like they are setting themselves up for a nurse exodus. Will serve them right, it will be the people that remain behind that will suffer the most.

No, she has access to our system from home. She was also sending emails through this system, saying we weren't triaging fast enough. This is a Level 1 trauma center, by the way. The thing that's really annoying is that by the time she called the nurse in triage, the waiting room really didn't look that bad. We had 5 or 6 waiting to be triaged and about 10 in the waiting room. All the ones waiting were ESI 4.

Sorry you had a rough shift, but to me it seems your ER is wasting a couple of staff members. One to answer the EMS phone????? and an LPN to greet patients???? Woudln't these nurses be better suited helping to care for patients and lightening the load?!

Swtooth

No, she has access to our system from home. She was also sending emails through this system, saying we weren't triaging fast enough. This is a Level 1 trauma center, by the way. The thing that's really annoying is that by the time she called the nurse in triage, the waiting room really didn't look that bad. We had 5 or 6 waiting to be triaged and about 10 in the waiting room. All the ones waiting were ESI 4.

Since when does your nurse manager think you have the time to read emails AND do your job?

If the ED thought you werent' triaging fast enough, then why she come in to help?? Also, who in their RIGHT mind things ED staff has time to surf the net, read email and still get the pt's triaged?? By the way what planet did the director come from??

So sorry to here this is happening to you.

Sounds like they are setting themselves up for a nurse exodus. Will serve them right, it will be the people that remain behind that will suffer the most.

Ohh, I completely agree with you. This place is setting itself up to fail..and the patient's are going to suffer right along with the nurses - and that's nothing short of criminal. Your NM needs a good swift kick in the area of her body she spends the most time thinking from...her bottom.

Since when does your nurse manager think you have the time to read emails AND do your job?

We use IBEX PulseCheck. It has an email feature that allows staff to send emails. You can only access it while logged into the tracking/charting system. We use it so send out notes to other staff (i.e. LVNs are able to send the primary RN an alert when they chart on a pt, the docs use it to communicate with the nurses, CT reads are sent to us, etc). I go back Sunday (have PALS tomorrow and Friday) and I'm anxious to see what else has happened. That 8-5 clinic job is looking more and more attractive.

Ok ladies and gentlemen,

I haven't made very many posts on here yet, but tonight I have to rant. I just got home (0100) after my 12 hour 11a-11p shift. We had a fairly nice day today until about 1800 when the bottom fell out of triage and EMS both as the ER is known to do. For whatever reason, our director (i.e. nurse manager) decided to monitor our tracking/charting system from home tonight. At approx 2200, she took it upon herself to call the charge nurse and chew him out for not opening our overflow rooms; (we were already working short staffed) she wanted him to have our dedicated EMS nurse (we have a nurse who answers the EMS phone/radio and directs traffic) open up overflow rooms and take pts. Keep in mind that this particular nurse would be leaving an hour later at 2300 and would not have a nurse coming in to relieve her. :angryfireThe director then proceded to call the triage nurse and tell her that she was not triaging people fast enough.:angryfire We staff triage with 1 LVN to greet pts at the desk and 2 RNs to triage. Tonight, we got an ICU nurse floated down to help out; they put her in triage because she doesn't know how to chart in our system or how the ER flows. She got a brief 10 minute "here's how you triage" from the other triage RN. This place is driving me insane!!! This is all on top of an email that we received last week, saying that due to increased pt volume after moving into our new ER (they claim they didn't see this one coming), the staff members who work 11a-11p will now be required to work one 3p-3a shift a week to help cover. No "hey why don't we discuss this with the staff first"; no, just "this will go into effect the next schedule" that comes out in 2 weeks. Why just the 11a-11p? Why can't they rotate it so that all the shifts have to take turns working an odd shift? Oh wait, that would be fair and make sense.

this reminds me of............OH - the reason there is a nursing shortage.

Well, what was going through my head was that if your NM thought you were not doing things fast enough, then why was she taking up more time making the phone calls and having staff on the phone while she chews them out. Seems like that was time that could have been moving patients or triaging. And reading emails? Who has the time on days like you described? Also--I had the question, if there were not enough people then why didn't she come into help either and I was also wondering the same thing about the LPN as to why she/he is there to "greet" the patients. Seems like there are several problems with this picture.

I also think it's like this all over. Everybody is so short handed that the people who are there are getting rail-roaded.