Favoritism has been identified as the major cause of this ongoing problem whereby the charge nurse favors some staff by assigning them to lower acuity patients than other staff. Some charge nurses target some nurses anytime they work with them on their unit. This practice creates problems on a daily basis, such as difficulty with staffing on different shifts and units, conflict among staff …show more content…
In a situation where the unit is short on staff, the charge nurse will be hesitant to ask a nurse from the previous shift if they will be willing to stay for an extra shift. The charge nurse knows the manager will question their decision because of overtime without considering the safety of the staff and patients. I work in a psychiatric hospital where safety is one of the company priorities. The majority of the decision-making in the facility where I work is controlled by the director of nursing who speaks to the manager who communicates the charge nurses; there is little or no input from the nurses on the floor even though they spend the most time with the patients.
Incident report
One of the most frequent incidents that occur in my work place is assault. During any assault incident, whether the assault is patient to staff or patient to patient, an incident report must be filed. The charge nurse and the nurse assigned to the perpetrator conduct the initial investigation. They both evaluate the situation to find out what happened prior to the incident.
Was the perpetrator agitated or showing any sign of aggressive behavior?
Does the perpetrator have a history of …show more content…
Each of these department looks at the incident to determine what caused it and what can be done to prevent future assaults if possible. The manager does his or her investigation by having a one-to-one conversation with the charge nurse, reviewing the patient’s care plan and reviewing records of the patient’s past visits, if any. The manager also reviews intervention steps taken by the staff after the incident and reviews with staff what was missed during the incident. The risk management department uses a graph to evaluate the frequency of assault within the entire unit, how many times the perpetrator attacks people per visit and causative factor(s) of the incident. The harm reduction teams are part of the safety team that responds to the unit any time the safety alarm is activated in response to any aggressive behavior on the unit. They investigate the incident at the scene and even though they still receive the electronic incident report. All data are collected and analyzed among departments to determine how aggressive and assaultive behavior can be reduced or prevented on the unit. The safety team comes up with a safety reduction method that eventually get passed down to the nurses during unit in-services and annually as