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| *Ostroff, Fair and Company>>>Health Care |
What is the best way for a hospital nurse (staff RN) to develop or improve time management skills? |
especially when you have understaffing, emergent situations and nonstop interruptions to name a few. I dont think there is an ideal way to develop time management skills on the ward, it is just such an unstable and ever changing environment, what I do is try and create a basic plan in my head at the start of the shift and use those as a cornerstone. For example, start the shift at 7.30am after handover and spend 10 minutes just going around introducing yourself to your patients and make sure there are no immediate needs, for example, no-one needs to sit up for breakfast, no-one needs to have their dentures in, no-one needs a commode, no-one needs to be reminded of nil by mouth restrictions prior to surgery, that sort of thing. Then a few minutes to make note of any important things that must be done on schedule, for example scans, xrays, surgical procedures, discharges, these are things that must be done at the right time. Then at 8am I will do my first drugs round, making note of any IV antibiotics that need to be given and at what time, more things that must be done at right time. So in this way you are building up a plan for the day, you have things to do at certain times. Prioritise your workload, if you have a dressing to do, assess its urgency, is it something that you need to do straight away or can it wait until you have a quieter spot in the day when you have no scheduled tasks to perform? Dont be tempted to always run to the phone when it rings as this causes interuptions and usually there is a problem on the end of the phone which will take even more time. Allow others to answer the phone too. Ask relatives to pick a representative to phone the ward for news of patients, that way you can reduce the number of repeated calls about an individual patient. Every shift will end with you thinking there are things you havent done, but hopefully by prioritising your workload the things you havent done will be the least important jobs. And I'm sure the night staff dont mind being left with those! choose the 12 hrs. shift then Study more to be a BSN, and then take MSN. Your pay grade will also sky rocket. My wife who is an RN only. The best decision i made when i was a Graduate Nurse was to start out on the midnight shift. Whether it is 8 hrs or 12 hrs, its much slower, there are fewer doctors around, and night nurses can be full of valuable information and experiences. It will help you get down the routine of a shift and give you an idea about how long it will take to chart, do assessments, pass medications, etc. Then you can take what you learned there and move it to day shift if you so choose, and the interruptions will be less of a inconvenience. Good Luck!! Check out http://jobinterviewquestion.org/article/... For few time management tips. |
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