RRT Roles

[becker_rn]

Hi Guys

I work for the RRT in a small community hospital and me an my coworkers are trying to come up with ways that we can be more useful to the hospital. So I was wondering besides responding to rapids, codes, calls, IV, and follow up ICU patients is their anything else your team does? We were thinking about doing central line dressing changes and possibly monitoring foley use. Thank you

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

My hospital doesn't have a dedicated RR team, but a couple things I always could use help with: mobilizing patients, and skin assessments (a pain when the pt is immobile and has orthotics on.)

[ICUNurseG]

I work in a ~400 bed hospital. We are based in critical care and help out throughout the ICUs only. We help with anything from admissions to crashing pts to turns. Lately due to budget we have to be monitor tech on one end of the unit. So we aren't able to help the other ICUs unless they're desperate and we do more tech work when we're not at rrts.

[CCRN_CSC_0710]

I was an RRT nurse at my last hospital and we'd circulate all night asking if anyone needed help. I'd help with baths, turning, etc with whomever needed help and then respond to rapid responses or codes as needed.

[Wile E Coyote, ASN, RN]

You may have already noticed the pattern in the above responses that I did, but note the types of 'other' tasks described...they tend to be those that can be dropped at any stage to go do their primary thang without undue risk to the 'dropped' party. As you well know, things like line dressing changes have a step or two that, if interrupted, leave the patient at risk.

Keep that as your primary determinant in taking on other tasks.