Charge nurses are accountable to organizations, staff, and the patients in their care. Health care facilities rely on charge nurses to be the gatekeepers for safe and efficient care. Charge nurses do all of this while ensuring that organizations meet regulatory requirements and produce an economic return. These nurses often conduct real-time assessments of unit productivity and make staff adjustments to meet institutional and patient needs. Practical communication skills are crucial for this role, as is the development of relationships within the health care facility. For effective health care delivery, charge nurses must develop personal relationships with the floors they oversee.
Interactions
Developing a personal relationship with the floor on which they work is essential for all charge nurses. This relationship depends on interacting with nurses, physicians, patients, family members, and other medical staff for effectiveness. Difficult patients, family dynamics, and complex care management challenges are often part of a typical day. Interactions are how charge nurses meet these challenges and ensure patients receive needed supplies and medications conducive to the healing process. A good rapport with a floor or a unit is essential for quality patient care.
Connecting and Effective Teamwork
For charge nurses to maintain personal connections with their work environments, effective teamwork is vital. Efficient teams share specific characteristics that charge nurses must develop in their units. Characteristics may include:
- Clear goals
- Clarity about roles and contribution
- Open communication
- Effective decision making
- Trust among team members
- Effective management of conflicts
- Cooperative relationships
These characteristics demonstrate that charge nurses must understand their position description and their team members’ job descriptions. Knowing the level of competency among staff members and the knowledge and skills of new graduate nurses is a must. Forming a personal relationship with the floor ensures that floor nurses know their team and respect their staff members’ different attitudes, beliefs, and values.
Planning, Coordinating, and Evaluating
A crucial component of the charge nurse’s role is identifying procedures, processes, and patient care needs on the floor and the resources to accomplish the work. The task requires knowledge acquired by understanding the floor personnel. A personal relationship with floor staff is essential for this understanding of the skills and abilities of each member. Charge nurses evaluate individual and collective patient outcomes and compare patient care delivery to accepted standards of care. Charge nurses can then adjust the assignment of resources as necessary and report changing needs and outcomes to the health care staff. The relationship and personal knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of floor staff allow planning, coordinating, and evaluating.
The staffing support team at Power Personnel can learn the ins and outs of your facility to screen and select personnel who best fit your needs and provide seamless continuity of staffing support.