I am a patient care technician on a med/surg floor and I'm getting my prerequisites for the adn program at my school. I'm writing on here because lately the unit I work on is understaffed every time I work. I find it hard to do do my job when I have 18 patients, and almost half are total care. It's hard to bathe and toilet and satisfy all of my patients in a 12 hour period when I have to account for vitals, blood sugars, Q4 vitals, bed alarms and everything else. The nurses always have a max of six patients and we're all trying very hard to help everyone. What are some things I can do to get all my my patients bathed, and turned, vitals and everything done in 12 hours? I try to prioritize and bathe all of my total care patients first. Yesterday I had 18 patients and I bathed 10 total care people and that's all I could get done. I love my job, and I feel horrible when I cannot get to everyone. I'm trying very hard. I suppose I just need advice on what to do in this situation.
My place I work is also understaffed. It sucks! Deligation helps some and time management but it is dangerous. I wish the higher ups got how dangerous it is and looked at that instead of the money.
What? I did midnights for years, and as an RN on a MedSurg floor, tried my darnedest to wash up my completes during last round, and set up some independents or partials.
In the ICU, at least half of the baths were done on nights.
Our problem in medsurg was that evening shift never did baths, just day shift and midnights.
No way should all of the baths be on your shift, especially with those ratios! Your shift includes all of the meals as it is! No way do you have time for bathing everyone.
1.) Very true. Most of our sedated pts are bathed on nocs, and awake pts are bathed 0800-2300.
That is crazy. I read a self-help book once by a guy who'd started an insurance co. called 'All You Can Do Is All You Can Do' ... and that's all I remember (the title). But it applies in a LOT of nursing jobs. I bust my *** every single day, but I never get everything done I'm 'supposed' to do, or how my mgt. and/or company expects. We all have to prioritize and get the most important things done. Hang in there!
In my hospital, night shift does the bath for total care patients because of the amount of time it takes. Our night shifts are pretty busy, but there is less going on as far as consulting teams, physical therapy, etc. I would think about proposing to management that night shift do total care baths. Start keeping data about your workload, i.e., how many patients you were assigned to, how many are total care, # staff on the floor, etc. Then propose the data to your manager so you can show her the numbers, emphasizing better quality of care and patient safety.
ChristiRN
15 Posts
My place I work is also understaffed. It sucks! Deligation helps some and time management but it is dangerous. I wish the higher ups got how dangerous it is and looked at that instead of the money.