Sarasota Memorial Hospital in Sarasota FL just layed off 8 of 13 members of their IV therapy team, as part of hospital wide cutbacks. The hospital was partially funded by the county, and that funding was recently cut by 15%. This is an example of how important it is to prove to your hospital how valuable you are as IV nurses. This proof is in the outcomes tracking, the hospital wants to see high customer satisfaction numbers, cost savings and decreased complications. As IV nurses, we know we do this, but we need to monitor our work and track our outcomes so we can prove this to the administration. Ask your manufacturer's clinical support if they can help you with this, many manufacturers have programs to assist with this justification and quality tracking.
See the full story:www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080814/ARTICLE/808140359/2058/NEWS
My team was downsized to 2.6 FTE's and is becoming a "Hard-to-stick" team with education to begin on each unit to train RN's for the routine sticks. This based on the Navigant Consultants report - she told me in the first 30 seconds of of meeting that IV teams are the first to go, depite us having those good outcomes, satisfaction data and cost containment that you speak of.
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Kathy Kokotis
Bard Access Systems
I bet they kept the high tech PICC RN's who use ultrasound. Wonder why????
Kathy
Kathy Kokotis
Bard Access Systems
Chris Cavanaugh, RN, BSN, CRNI, VA-BC