Experienced Texas Health nurses are leaving their desk jobs for hours at a time or working weekends to help at the bedside, assisting on the front lines as the COVID-19 surge continues.
Task R.N.s can find themselves doing anything from helping with nursing care for COVID-19 patients to working as patient care technicians — bathing patients, assisting them to the bathroom and taking care of other needs.
“We urgently need our System Services R.N.s and other nurses who don’t deal directly with patient care to help out by taking a shift or more as Task R.N.s at the bedside,” said Carla Dawson, Texas Health chief people officer. “We can train nurses who aren’t comfortable at bedside for this important role as we work through the pandemic.”
Beth Hirsh, R.N., works on the CareConnect One optimization team in Information Technology Services (ITS) and remembers exactly when she made the decision to step up.
She was at a clinical work group meeting and heard a Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth nurse “talking about how exhausted they were and getting emotional about it. That one nurse, when she got emotional, you could just hear it in her voice. It broke my heart.”
Hirsh last worked at the bedside eight years ago, in progressive care and the intensive care unit (ICU) at a joint venture and PRN at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
This time, she’s been all over the system doing Task R.N. work: the ICU, COVID-19 units, the Emergency Department and stocking personal protective equipment at Texas Heath Presbyterian Hospital Plano; medical-surgical floor, ED and giving immunizations at Texas Health Hospital Frisco.
She often works a night shift after finishing up her daytime shift on the optimization team.
“My thought was I could go in so they could sit down for a second and concentrate on charting or just zone out for a millisecond,” Hirsh said.
Her optimization team colleague Johnna Moution-Donald, R.N., said she’s been working Friday nights after her regular day shift or Saturday morning at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest Fort Worth.
“I absolutely love it,” she said. Her last bedside work was 10 years ago at Texas Health Fort Worth in the ED, Trauma Intensive Care Unit and the GI lab.
The Task R.N. work “allows me to help the nurses and bring a smiling face to the patients who can’t have visits if they’re COVID positive.”
‘We’re all in this together’
While System Services employees sign up for Task R.N. jobs, the approach is different at Texas Health Fort Worth.
“When we were developing a surge plan, we wanted to make use of every single person who had an R.N. behind their name,” said Elaine Nelson, D.N.P., R.N., NEA-BC, CENP, chief nursing officer.
At first the hospital asked for volunteers to do Task R.N. work, but when the surge began to build, Nelson said she sent out email directing clinical nurse leaders, non-direct care nurses and hospital APRNs to pick up an additional eight hours a week.
“We’re all in this together,” she said. “You don’t have to be bedside, you can be a task nurse, a screener, do bed baths — something none of us ever forgets.”
Nurse practitioner Hayley Brown, M.S.N., APRN, ACNP-BC, ACHPN, said she last worked as a bedside nurse 15 years ago in an oncology unit.
“It’s been quite a transition,” she said. “It’s been a very humbling experience to see all that is required of our bedside staff. They are heroes.” She’s done everything from changing patients to helping pull medications and work on discharge paperwork.
“When I walk away from the job each day, I feel like I have helped, but definitely not to the degree or capacity I would like to,” Brown said. “I would encourage people to do as much as they feel they can do. Just keeping your faith and keeping your focus on helping others will give you what you need to get through it.”
(Pictured: Beth Hirsh, R.N., and Johnna Moution-Donald, R.N., work in System Services but have added hospital shifts to help out during the pandemic. Hayley Brown, M.S.N., APRN, ACNP-BC, ACHPN, is working eight hours at the bedside at Texas Health Fort Worth.)
By Judy Wiley • Posted January 19, 2021
