Hiring New Registered Nurses for Intensive Care Unit Essay

Summary

The intensive care unit is a critical department in medical partitioning. It requires health service providers to be competent, committed, and experienced in handling patients in critical conditions. To ensure that the health institutions achieve perfect ICU care, the human resource office, in conjunction with supervisory departments, finds skilled personnel working in those delicate areas. The purpose of this paper is to outline methods for analyzing the ICU job, drafting the job description, and future changes that may affect the future of the job description.

Methods for Conducting Analysis of the Job

The interview is one of the best methods that health institutions can apply to assess the knowledge interviewees have on specific tasks. In this case, the intensive care unit requires nurses to have technical ICU nursing skills such as monitoring the critical patient’s neurological status, offering ventilatory services, administration of medicine, and many more (Hines, 2019). The other quality that the supervisor will check while interviewing potential ICU nurses is the passion for this job. ICU care is demanding and requires nurses to withstand challenging situations in the unit (Li & Pan, 2020). A nurse should be able to withstand seeing patients suffering in the hospital bed, and that is the opportune moment they should offer support to the patient. Additionally, the nurses should have the ability and skill to evaluate dynamic situations. The reason is that patients who are in ICU beds may keep on deteriorating where the matter should be between life and death.

Another method to analyze the job is by carrying it out in the context first to receive first-hand information and experience. By performing the job, the hospital management should take the duties to assess the potential physical hazards based on the ICU care (Li & Pan, 2020). When the team is aware of the unit’s prevailing conditions, they are in a better situation to know what qualifications of nurses they must hire.

Job Description and Specification

1. The ICU nurse is responsible for closely monitoring critical patients by observing the specific procedures and prescribed drugs or therapy for all underlying conditions of the patient.
2. The nurses are responsible for helping the doctors provide physical assessments and administration of treatment for ICU patients.
3. Another duty for the nurses in the ICU department is to monitor unique and important signs and make sure functions for the feeding tubes, ventilators, and other equipment are connected to support the life of a patient in critical condition.
4. An ICU nurse has the responsibility of attending to the patient’s general demands, like bathing them, feeding, and dressing them (Bryant & Parker, 2020). Additionally, on this matter, they are tasked with making the patient comfortable by dressing replacement and taking medicine.
5. Together with other ICU specialists, the nursing practitioner is supposed to work effectively and efficiently to provide clear directions and other procedures in the unit.
6. Another important task is that an ICU nurse is supposed to provide support and education to the ICU patient’s family. That can be achieved by giving responses to the members’ inquiries and offering vital instructions on how they can care for their members.
7. Educational requirements must be fulfilled fully, which means an ICU nurse should be a registered professional nurse. An ICU nurse is supposed to be experienced in nursing and assessed successfully in the internship process.
8. Knowledge and skills requirements for the job should be able to handle a critical and challenging situation with ease and competency (Bryant & Parker, 2020). That includes the ability to decide intelligently in performing their duties and assisting the doctors in the critical department’s operational life.

Future Changes That May Affect the ICU Nursing Job Description and Specification

Critical care is facing some potential obstacles, especially in the future shaped by the problems such as the aging population and the shrinking field of critical care practitioners. The other major factors that affect ICU care’s future are the changes in technology and innovation made in the medical field. For example, many baby boomers are gradually aging, which means the demand for critical care facilities in health institutions will rise (Hines, 2019). The other factor is the experts in the critical care units because the population is highly trained due to research institutes that have good quality equipment in place.

There is current advancement in networking about technology that is likely to redefine the organizational circle of the ICU department. That means in the years to come, care units are possibly having regular relies on resources that range from human and technological approaches (Hines, 2019). Additionally, remote monitoring is helping in leveraging the current workforce, for example, in electronic ICUs, commonly referred to as ICUs. The electronic ICUs allow a nurse to manage all the patients from off-site. From the report, it is anticipated that the ICU department is likely to have changed in the future based on the demographics such as the aging population and the other change will be based on technology and innovation.

References

Bryant, S., & Parker, K. (2020). Participation in a nurse practitioner fellowship to instill greater confidence, job satisfaction, and increased job retention. Journal of The American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 32(10), 645-651.

Hines, K. (2019). Empowering remote nurses with tertiary training – St George – Broken Hill ICU Partnership.Australian Critical Care, 32, S14.

Li, M., & Pan, Y. (2020). ICU nurses’ knowledge, attitude, and behavior about ICU acquired weakness.Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 10(5), 65-71.