 Resource Nurses: Lending a Hand
More than a year ago, executives at Johns Hopkins Bayview
Medical Center in Baltimore brainstormed on ways to help with the problem of
running overcrowded emergency rooms more smoothly. The result was the creation
of a new position at the hospital-a critical care resource nurse who primarily
would help patients in emergency care, but could also be sent to help in other
areas of the hospital, if needed. This "floating" nurse would provide overall
relief to other nurses suffering from patient overload, thus boosting employee
retention, said Andy Magalee, the hospital's director of nurse staffing and
resource management.
"They can work in the critical and most intense area of the
hospital and also in other areas," Magalee said. "They go where the fire needs
to be put out."
The position was implemented in May 2004. Since then, things
have been running with improved efficiency and employees at the hospital have
been taking notice.
For example, the nursing staff was flooded with praise after
one incident in which an elderly patient in one of the hospital's clinics
needed to be transferred to a critical care area, but all the beds were full. A
resource nurse, Krista Harkum, was dispatched and cared for the patient-who had
an extensive medical history-until the hospital was ready to make the transfer.
Harkum was able give her full attention to the unstable patient, something no
other medical care provider would have been able to do at the time.
Because the resource nurses respond to emergency situations
all over the hospital, all of the employees are happier.
"It provides the floor that they go to a tremendous amount
of relief around the critical event that's occurring on the floor," Magalee
said. "Many times, the individual employees have two patients already and more
knocking on the door. For those people, it's a retention factor, because they
feel like there's some relief [by the resource nurse]."
Also the resource nurses enjoy the job because it provides
excitement and an opportunity to work in different areas.
"Those nurses are usually very highly skilled, and they like
the variation," Magalee said. "The variety of floating is an attraction."
When the position was created, Harkum was offered one of the
jobs because she had previous intensive care unit and emergency room
experience. The job requires two years of critical care experience in addition
to being a registered nurse.
Hopkins Bayview has four nurses who have the specific title
of critical care resource nurse. Magalee said the hospital usually tries to
schedule one on duty per day, per shift.
A typical day for a critical care resource nurse at Hopkins
Bayview starts in the ER, where the nurse will manage patients and evaluate
what actions need to be taken. The nurses help transfer patients to a specific
unit or can take them to get CAT scans or MRIs, if necessary. If the nurse is
not needed in the emergency room, he or she will walk around the hospital to
let everyone know they are available to help, Harkum said.
Harkum said that resource nurses must possess several
qualities. “You need to be able to think critically, prioritize, be
organized, and be a good communicator,” she said.
Other hospitals sometimes have admissions nurses who do
administrative work to help with patient flow in the emergency room, but
usually do not have resource nurses trained in critical care.
Magalee said that Hopkins Bayview has an opening for an
admissions nurse, but since the critical care resource nurse position seems to
be working very well, officials are considering replacing the admissions nurse
with another resource nurse who will help with the high volume of ER patients.
“I know that the ER staff absolutely loves the resource
nurses because our patients just don’t stop coming in,” Harkum said
Contact:
Andy Magalee
Director of Nursing
Staffing and Resource Mangement
410-550-0190 (Back to the top)
|
