Sunday, October 4, 2009
Clinicals Week 3
This week I spent a total of 8 hours with my preceptor. It seemed that this week brought about a lot of crisis management. The hospital is extremely busy, especially the ED, due to the flu. This burden is therefore dispersed throughout the medical center. This placed extra pressure on the floors that my preceptor directs. They needed to be able to care for extra patients and make sure that patients were being discharged when possible to keep patients moving through the ED. It also posed a problem because the occupational health department director is being very active in preventing flu outbreak among employees. Occupational health is screening employees and asking them to stay home when they meet certain criteria. This makes staffing difficult for this very busy patient load. O.C., my preceptor, stayed very calm in all situations. He was very good at evaluating the situation at hand and making appropriate decisions to ensure patient and staff safety. I was very impressed by his strategic decision making and his ability to also consider future outcomes.
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What an enlightened health promotion initiative. I cannot stand it when people come to work sick and share their illness with colleagues. Stay home!
ReplyDeleteNicki, I can't imagine how frustrating it can be with coordinating staffing during the flu season. However, providing a safe workplace enviroment is always the priorty. I believe there are some effective strategies O.C can utilize to ensure workplace coverage. Some example include, short-term hiring, causal hires, temporary assignment or modifying work schedules
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with the keeping the sickness at home, however what a staffing crisis. With new CDC recommendations it is difficult to not feel a crunch when it comes to people calling in sick. My unit takes it very serious as a unit that works with 2 high risk patients, pregnant women and babies.... what a mess!
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