All comments are left unedited, just like they were typed in response to the Survey Question # 18 below:
Some employees claim that other ICU nurses should not be provided with an opportunity to learn the Action Team workflow and to periodically perform in a role of Action Team RN because only our current Action Team RNs have a “special” working relationship with doctors that other nurses don’t have.
In your professional opinion, if that claim is true, is it fair to deprive other ICU nurses of the opportunity to learn and to periodically perform in a role of Action Team RN based on such claim ?
- A special “ working relationship” with MDs should not be a primary determinant of being an Action Team. MD schedules varies.
- Good professional relationship with all other healthcare providers including doctors is absolutely essential for all nurses to have to ensure the highest possible quality of patient care. However, the working environment where only few nurses have a “special” working relationship with doctors, is not healthy because it promotes favoritism, may lead to practicing outside of scope by RNs who have a “special” relationship with doctors, and besides being unfair to other nurses, is also unsafe to our patients.
- I think everyone who is willing or wants to be an Action RN should be given a chance to do it or to be trained, that way they can also build that “SPECIAL” working relationship that they claim.. i dont think that “SPECIAL WORKING RELATIONSHIP” will change the care given to the patient nor the outcome of the pt. I think everyone in the list of Action RNs should be given chance to perform such duty and not to be use just a back up of the back up of up of the REGULAR ACTION RNs. Not giving them that chance is not teaching them and training them to be a good… COMPETENT..SKILLED Action RNs. Continuos exposure and hands on is what they need.
- It should be equal opportunity to everyone if they want to be involve.
- I think this is an overreaction of some nurses that like to bully others into submission.
- All staff, should put the patients safety and needs above anything else. A doctor/RN relationship should not put a patient at risk.
- Everybody should have an equal opportunity to learn as we are all ICU professional nurses and we have the same privilege and opportunity to learn and develop ourselves as a Kaiser employee.
- It is not fair to deprive other ICU nurses of the opportunity to learn action team who want to learn.
- I believe that it helps but if you don’t have a personality to make those connections it’s gonna to make things more difficult. It’s not black or white and can’t be.
- It is reasonable for nurses who have practiced long enough in the hospital to perform the Action team assignment as they are familiar with workflow, policies and procedures but we should not deprive those who are interested and are willing to be trained.
- In my almost 2 yrs since being oriented to action team i’ve only been assigned to this role 3 time . To break it down 3 / 730 Days! My point is to be efficient and good at a role , you need to see it often and experience situations to be able to easily troubleshoot, be efficient in your role to name a few! It is all about muscle memory… 1 every 2 weeks i think should be enough for everyone in the TEAM to share the load !
- Everybody should have an equal opportunity to learn as we are all ICU professional nurses and we have the same privilege and opportunity to learn and develop ourselves as a Kaiser employee.
- There should be an application and an appropriate vote for appropriate action team members. Just because there’s a desire to be action team doesn’t mean there’s an ability. And just because you’ve been an ICU nurse “for a long time” doesn’t mean you’d be a good fit as an action team member.
- If they are willing to, they should be given the opportunity.
- The “special” relationship has a lot to do with communication and expectations. This is lazy management and one of the core complaints of new employees is having to know specialized information to perform normal duties. This is typically seen in small community hospitals, but somehow the small community hospital mentality has carried over and is dangerous in a large organization, and these dangers are ignored and not assessed or measured. Call schedules procedures preferences should all be very clearly outlined. Management is not always aware of these special circumstances either, and they will float a nurse who does have this specialized information leaving whomever is retained to be set up to fail.
- Every experienced ICU should be given and opportunity to train to become an Action Team Nurse.
- If a nurse wants to be part of action team they should be given the opportunity.
- Not abut special working relationship. It is a role who has extensive responsibilities and extensive experience on how to spot a sick pts and what to do right away without waiting. There are already many action nurse who are doing a great job . Pls don’t mix up with ones who can’t – we need peer evaluation reading all above issues . Let the nurses pick anonymously who are the elite team that is already or who does a great job with break / support and action team – we are Union , let’s vote who can do the best job since we are the ones going to suffer if we have to endure a non excel nurse as support or action.
PPC’s Comment: “Peer Evaluation” and Anonymous Voting to determine “who are the elite team” and “who can do the best job” are not viable solutions because in order to evaluate someone and to figure out who can do the best job, to ensure fairness, accuracy and reliability, the nurses who vote and/or do evaluation (over 140 of our ICU nurses) have to actually observe that RN’s actual performance and be familiar with the patient’s history and all circumstances that led to an intervention by an RN who is being evaluated. “Peer Evaluation” as it is being practiced in our facility (evaluation by a few nurses chosen by a nurse who is being evaluated) is not going to produce reliable results for obvious reasons.
- This question leads to speculations not based from facts. I prefer not to answer.
- Loaded answers. Hard to comprehend and understand what’s behind it.
PPC’s Comment: Actually, the Survey question 18 is based on the fact that was described within the body of Survey Question # 18. Some of the opponents of fair distribution of Action Team assignments have actually argued that the Action Team Role should be limited only to our current Action Team nurses because they have developed a “special” working relationship with doctors. While some may perceive this survey question and answer choices as “loaded”, it reflects a real debate on whether having a “special” relationship with doctors is a legitimate reason for depriving other nurses of the opportunity to perform in a role of ATRN. The phrasing of that question was intentional to prompt critical reflection on the issue.
