Short Stay Unit????

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I am a new grad with six months on my own on a very busy medical floor. I am looking in to working in a SSU, and was wondering if anyone could give me an idea of a typical day in that setting.

I love to teach, like to stay busy, but am quite overwhelmed by the pressure of having 5-6 patients on the floor I currently work on. I am also looking for more of a less stressful environment that is more organized.

I appreciate any feedback -- thanks:D

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I worked on one for a long while. Definitely not less stressful than a typical med/surg floor. The constant admits and discharges make it a mess. And it turns into overflow, so you end up with a couple of patients mixed in that need more care than you can give when you're busy with constant admits and discharges.

Personally, I liked it, but it definitely was more stressful and less organized than working a floor.

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Wow! Really? I didn't think it would be so chaotic in that area. How many patients are generally assigned to one nurse, and is it mostly same day procedures?

Thank you for the response. You have been very helpful.

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Wow! Really? I didn't think it would be so chaotic in that area. How many patients are generally assigned to one nurse, and is it mostly same day procedures?

Thank you for the response. You have been very helpful.

Basically we had the same number as the med-surg units (the high end number). For me it was at a peds hospital, so it was 5, which is the upper limit. They tried to give me 6 on a few occasions, but I refused to take the 6th. It was all the 23 hour observation patients, with a few overflow thrown in. During the heavy census times, it was all overflow. Basically before you finish the paperwork from a discharge you've got an admit, before you finish the paperwork from an admit, you've got a discharge. I really liked it, but I definitely feel like the floor is less stress and less chaos. (If one can believe that a floor can have less stress and chaos than elsewhere in the hospital.:))

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Specializes in Critical Care, Capacity/Bed Management.

The short stay at my facility opens at 6am and closes at around 9pm or 11pm. The RN's admit all short stay patients and prep them for O.R., insert IV's ask question do vitals, they then ship em off to the OR, after PACU is done with them they come back and need vitals and see if they eat, then they can be D/C'ed.

There are about 6 to 7 RN's working during rush hour which is around 9am to 2pm. In my facilty tuesday and thursday is eye surgery day which means 40-50 cases. and the rest of the days it may be 30-40 cases.

Yes it can be quite stressful with having to make sure that the patient has all their belongings and keeping up with ur discharges and admission and having to find translators the list goes on and on.

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I think this does sound stressful, but in a different way than the floor. The floor to me is discouraging in the fact that 5-6 patients can have life-threatening complications and a multitude of conditions/co-morbidity, while I must juggle the management of their safety -- this just seems so unrealistic and unsafe at times.

The short stay setting, if I understand correctly, is more busy stress, and of course monitoring for post-op/ post-procedural complications.

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