standing orders

3rdcareerRN · Apr 21, 2009

Ours are the most common (~60) complaints/major symptoms for walk-in patients and accidents. Virtually every order is to assess, stabilize, apply nursing interventions, give OTC meds or vaccines, and if necessary escalate. By escalate I mean either call 911 or send the patient to the urgent-care/worker-compensation clinic. We are limited to non-invasive (except fingersticks) assessments and treatments. The orders are signed by the chief physician of the associated clinic, who is on-call for chemical-exposure or life-threatening emergencies. Because the RNs work autonomously at this site (with physician oversight only -- e.g., quarterly visits), the standing orders are rather detailed (1-2 pages per order). (Because they are proprietary intellectual property, I cannot share them or give you more detail.)

Also look at thread https://allnurses.com/occupational-health-nursing/caring-nonwork-related-172997.html

For anyone new to occ health: I recommend the occ health text by Bonnie Rogers. Also search this forum for "OSHA links" for a list of very helpful links to OSHA and other regulatory websites that others and I have posted.

Please share more info about the type of setting you are in, how many occ health nurses are there, etc. That is useful info to help the rest of us understand alternate occ health environments.