What are the duties of an inpatient Psych NP?

Tegridy · May 11, 2020

Round on patients and adjust medicine

JZ1 · May 11, 2020

57 minutes ago, Tegridy said:
Round on patients and adjust medicine

You were a former NP? What made you go into internal medicine. Just curious.

umbdude, MSN, APRN · May 11, 2020

Not an NP yet but did my clinical in inpatient and also worked inpatient psych as a RN and tech.

It varies from one hospital to another, but generally providing medication management that would stabilize patients; working with social work to find disposition and nursing team for day-to-day workflow; talking to or meeting with families; talking to outpatient providers; psychoeducation; handling emergency situations; consults or refer patient for medical issues; deciding whether or not to involuntarily commit a patient; assessing progress, risk, and discharge; documentation; dealing with insurance companies (utilization review) to justify longer stay; and covering a lot of random requests from staff and patients.

verene, MSN · May 11, 2020

admissions, discharges, ongoing care - both medications and non-pharmaceutical options - routinely assessing and evaluation progress towards discharge, leading the clinical team, cross-coverage for other providers, and serving on committees - as a very basic rundown.

I typically carry a panel of 12-13 patients (I'm part-time) and meet with all of them at least weekly to check-in, adjust medication, work on coping skills, and help patients move towards meeting discharge criteria. As I work with a forensic population risk assessment is a big piece of my job. A big part of my job is communication with patients, with staff, and with other clinicians and guiding the clinical team as we work with a patient both to understand that individual in context of their life experiences, current psychiatric symptoms, and in developing appropriate treatment goals for where we are currently at in their clinical treatment. Big difference between outpatient and inpatient is that the work is highly interdisciplinary, and that daily workflow can be unpredictable. Sometimes days are really chill and you spend spend a lot of time on therapy and coping skills building and sometimes you spend a lot of time with a patient who is in seclusion/restraints yelling profanities at you, ,or keeping a hot milieu from getting to the point of seclusion/restraint. I also go to court periodically related to my patient population - typically to testify to need for treatment/medications, but sometimes also for things like community restoration hearings.

Personally, I love inpatient work and find it a lot less draining than outpatient but everyone is different.

JZ1 · May 16, 2020

Great response..thank you. Seems like inpatient would be an interesting choice for me

verene, MSN · May 28, 2020

On 5/15/2020 at 5:15 PM, JZ1 said:
Great response..thank you. Seems like inpatient would be an interesting choice for me

It's a fun place to be if you don't mind the unpredictability of the work, enjoy working with other disciplines, and are willing to tackle ethical/moral quandaries on a regular basis. You may also see a lot of repeat customers which can be very disheartening at times it's the worst/best part of the job to work with repeat patients. If you have specific questions about inpatient PMHNP work feel free to reach out.

SMZ_DNPstudent · Aug 11, 2020

On 5/11/2020 at 7:49 AM, verene said:
admissions, discharges, ongoing care - both medications and non-pharmaceutical options - routinely assessing and evaluation progress towards discharge, leading the clinical team, cross-coverage for other providers, and serving on committees - as a very basic rundown.
I typically carry a panel of 12-13 patients (I'm part-time) and meet with all of them at least weekly to check-in, adjust medication, work on coping skills, and help patients move towards meeting discharge criteria. As I work with a forensic population risk assessment is a big piece of my job. A big part of my job is communication with patients, with staff, and with other clinicians and guiding the clinical team as we work with a patient both to understand that individual in context of their life experiences, current psychiatric symptoms, and in developing appropriate treatment goals for where we are currently at in their clinical treatment. Big difference between outpatient and inpatient is that the work is highly interdisciplinary, and that daily workflow can be unpredictable. Sometimes days are really chill and you spend spend a lot of time on therapy and coping skills building and sometimes you spend a lot of time with a patient who is in seclusion/restraints yelling profanities at you, ,or keeping a hot milieu from getting to the point of seclusion/restraint. I also go to court periodically related to my patient population - typically to testify to need for treatment/medications, but sometimes also for things like community restoration hearings.
Personally, I love inpatient work and find it a lot less draining than outpatient but everyone is different.

Hi,

Would you recommend a Psych NP Program to a nurse with critical/m-s background interested in Psych NP Program? Do you have colleagues who were former critical care/med-surg nurses that went to Psych NP, did it work out?