Roll Call for Skills Days

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Hey everyone.

II am a hospital based educator for a small community based hospital. I am interested in learning about skills days that your facilties might have. How many skills days per year or what type of skills are needed? ex chest tubes defib etc.

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Specializes in RN, BSN, CHDN.

I have lost count how many skill day's we have to attend or do tests for. Each year we seem to have more and more to do. We have mock codes monthly, infection control monthly. I have a whole booklet at work in my locker telling me which ones I have to do.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

guardwife,

Welcome Welcome Welcome to our tribe (educators)!

Before adding more "things" to the ever growing checklists pile, I would advise you to conduct a critical analysis of all the stuff you have inherited. Is it really worthwhile to make nurses prove their competence on a regular basis for all the things they do on a routine basis? Maybe you can get rid of the time-wasters. In today's economic climate, you should be looking to decrease costs by switching to more effective ways to get the job done. Education activities eat up a lot of labor $, so your administration will be very greatful if you can help them by decreasing time spent in this 'stuff'.

Meet with your Quality & risk management folks to find out what competency-related issues are causing the most problems - these should be your priority. Next -talk to your JC/CMS gurus and make sure you are meeting all education-related requirements. This should pretty well fill up your 'to-do' list for a year or so :)

As a newbie educator, you probably also want to make sure you are up to date on education practice issues as well as the skills, knowledge & tools you will need for your new job. There are some really great books out there such as "The Ultimate Guide to Competency Assessment in Health care" by Donna Wright. It's inexpensive & has tons of information and examples. Join NNSDO if you can.

Have FUN!

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Thanks for the input. The last skills day that was put on the Pedi CNS was painful it had 18 stations and took 4 hrs to get through. I am trying to narrow things down and hit upon 6-12 items and hopefully focus on one topic per month. Or I want to hook onto Adult M/S skills days and add pedi specfic info to each station. What do you think?

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