WHY OH WHY? Every year-------competencies!!!!!

[Emergent]

Ugh, every year we have to do yet another annoying, repetitive, HIPAA or some other Gawd awful online inservice. Is there an end? Will the healthcare system ever deem me HIPAA compliant? Will they ever consider that I've absorbed their vital teachings for more than a year?

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

Nope.. they will not. THEY ( whoever they are)... propagate their positions by BS mandates like this.

[Julie Reyes, DNP, RN]

We have to do these competencies (we call them CHEX web) all the time too. I think some of them are irritating, and some are interesting and good for review (like cardiac or trauma)...but the one I liked the best had to do with what we are supposed to do if a gunman came into the unit. I thought that was fun...but i think i may have a twisted sense of perspective.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

We do not get paid for the time we spend online. We only get paid for the skills check we do in the office.

Hmm if you're non-exempt I wonder if this is even legal? I know I've always entered my education hours into my elapsed timesheet, and I was told I could not work on online training while out on STD.

[SeattleJess]

Really? Wow. How do they get away with not paying you for something that they mandate that you do?

Someone needs to call "our wonderful government and its bureaucrats and desk jockeys in a different agency to get her employment rights enforced!

Reminds me of a comment I heard. "All lawyers are sleazy ambulance chasers... except for my lawyer."

[SeattleJess]

I had to go through skull-meltingly boring state training for years. What helped me was telling myself that I could learn one new thing, just had to stay awake and listen for it and also (blush of badness), trying to think of questions that might trip up the presenter so I could see how s/he handled them.

[SeattleJess]

My company has a annual skills which takes a couple of hours or so that everybody has to do. The day shift gets paid because they are on duty anyway but night shift doesn't get paid because we are staying over on our own time. The company justifies this by saying you are on a salary. 

Day shift isn't on salary?

Most facilities have a requirement of annual competencies that have to be completed by all staff.

I know, that's the problem. Inane repetition of what is either trivial (accucheck... guiac...) or mind-numbingly boring (HIPAA).

And not *all* staff... says someone who is pretty tight with a large number of medical staff...

What's next, annual competencies on starting IVs?

Plus I get tired of the "communicable disease" training we have to do every year. "True or false…you can catch HIV from someone who sneezes in the next room." Ugh.

So, is it true or false? I just can't seem to remember!

True...

And flu shots cause the flu...

And every hospital in the country is capable of safely dealing with an Ebola patient...

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

We have to do these competencies (we call them CHEX web) all the time too. I think some of them are irritating, and some are interesting and good for review (like cardiac or trauma)...but the one I liked the best had to do with what we are supposed to do if a gunman came into the unit. I thought that was fun...but i think i may have a twisted sense of perspective.

Love the twisted. In my case.. a gunmen on the unit... would have met up with my Glock. Screw the rules... I carry my weapon at all times. But that would be another thread.

[No Stars In My Eyes]

I go in to my agency office, they give me the booklets and the competency tests ( no computers); I fill out the test answers quickly as it is the same ones from year to year. Like y'all said: do it in my sleep. Five to ten minutes, tops, and then I'm gone.

They skip around with different CPR courses and naturally every year there is a difference in that techniques change and each course (AHA, RedCross, VA, etc.) has it's own take. Sometimes we get videos with excruciatingly BAD acting and stilted spoken lines......But the instructor my agency uses is very savvy and has been doing the classes for us for years, so she knows what to breeze through, just to be able to say it was covered, and when to cut to the chase, and how to get us out of there within a reasonable time period.

That said, there is always some very frightened employee who has a hard time getting through it, panics at having to demonstrate, never gets it straight, and doesn't understand. I feel sorry for them. But the instructor is good enough to not make the rest of us go through everything at the snail's pace a few require, and she releases the rest of us and goes 1:1 with those in the class who need a little extra TLC and hand-holding.

I have to admit to giving a heavy sigh when told that my ____________(whatever) is due.

[JBudd, MSN]

Same old, same old, we do them over and over. So, then why do some of my colleagues continue to do the little stuff wrong? I am so tired of hearing "no one ever said that was a policy!"

[cd365c]

Oh boy oh boy, I get to learn how to use the new charting system EPIC. Another thing to learn!