Essay On Nurse Staffing

The nursing staff scope of practice is based on the board of nursing. It includes assessment, interventions, evaluations and rehab for patients that are sick or injured. Nurses should also help prevent illness and are able to administer and sign for medication orders by a doctor. The staffed nurse can also develop a nursing care plan and supervise teaching. During the time I spent with my preceptor, she did everything in her scope of practice and she allowed me to assist her so I could learn and practice these important skills. These skills are performed on a daily basis in the hospital setting. Therefore, the nursing staff to be efficient and comfortable with preforming them.
The staffing in the ICU department where I did by preceptorship can handle sixteen patients with eight registered nurses on the floor with one charge nurse and one respiratory therapist, but it varies day to day deepening in the census. Some days in the intensive care unit required up to six nurses and remained constantly busy during the entire night shift and had nursing staff on call, so the department is built to handle a heavy patient work load. Some day when the census was in the lower side the nursing staff could be shifted to other departments or could …show more content…
The registered nurses are given two patients and the nurse is able to delegate other task to LPNs and UAPs, so each caregiver is able to be more productive to provide the best care for the patients. In case of an emergency with one of the patients in the ICU floor the nursing staff might change the style to assist the other staff member in charge of the patient who is critical, but after the patient is stabilized the staff members go back to the functional style. This helps the staff keep up with the demand of the intensive care unit and allows the staff not to fall behind in their patient care and does not affect the patient