Candice Schroat

• Provides clinical assessment and intervention utilizing nursing process, VITAS Palliative Care Guide, and Triage Protocols.

• Serves as patient and family advocate by communicating with attending physicians, long term care facility staff, case managers, and others external to VITAS as necessary. Provides collaboration with LPN/LVN's.

• Coordinates all service delivery after hours including patient and family education, dispatching of interdisciplinary visits, and coordination of services with external vendors and resources as needed.

• Provides support and collaboration with Telecare staff to ensure favorable patient outcomes; Provides bereavement support to families.

• Documents interactions with patients, families, contacts, and vendors in patient record to include assessment, plan of care, caller agreement to plan, any actions and interventions and resolution of each patient/family interaction.

• Reviews all entries in record made by Telecare LPN/LVN's and Patient Care Coordinators and ensures compliance with documentation Standards.

• Compliance with all departmental standards, policies, and procedures with training and education, management of workload, disaster planning, attendance adherence, and quality standards.

• Works on a busy 24 bay post anesthesia care unit at a community based medical center.

• Provides direct patient care, ensuring that all care is provided in accordance with established standards of practice.

• Collaborates with interdisciplinary teams to ensure quality care and patient safety.

• Oversees the post-operative care, discharge and transfer of patients.

• Coordinates the night-to-day operations of the unit and delegates assignments to staff.

• Participates in quality improvement initiatives, resulting in positive patient satisfaction scores.

• Serves as a mentor and role model for new graduate and new to service nurses, providing guidance and support.

• Documents assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation in the patient record. Documentation is timely and in accordance with policy.

• Administers medications, monitors patient vitals, and provides pain and nausea relief to patients in a post anesthesia care setting.

• Ensures unit is stocked/ organized for the next day and all overnight checks are completed (code carts, blood glucose monitors, isolation rooms, blanket warmers)

• Assists with next day nurse assignments and scheduling.

• Assures previous days post-operative callbacks are completed and prints and assigns for the nest day.

Tucson

• Worked on a busy outpatient and inpatient post anesthesia case unit at a level 1 trauma facility that specializes in trauma, orthopedic, and gynecological surgeries, as well as all other general surgery services.

• Cross trained to preop.

• Average number of surgeries per shift is between 40-80 cases and average patients per RN are 8-12 cases per shift, on call 4-5 shifts per scheduling period.

• Assess patients' pain levels and sedation requirements.

• Monitor patients for changes in status and indications of conditions such as sepsis or shock and institutes appropriate interventions.

• Administers medications via intravenously, injection, orally, gastric tubes, or by other methods.

• Advocates for patients' and families' needs or provides emotional support for patients and their families.

• Documents patients' medical histories and assessment findings.

• Set up and monitors medical equipment and devices such as cardiac monitors and alarms, oxygen delivery devices, transducers, and pressure lines.

• Precepts new and experienced nurses to unit

• Worked and cross trained on a busy out-patient and in patient pre-op, observation and post anesthesia care unit that also specialized in plastic and gynecological surgeries along with all other general surgery services
• Average number of surgeries per shift was between 30-70 cases and average cases per RN were 6-10 cases.
• Assessed patients' pain levels and sedation requirements.
• Monitored patients for changes in status and indications of conditions such as sepsis or shock and instituted appropriate interventions.
• Administered medications via intravenously, injection, orally, gastric tubes, or by other methods.
• Advocated for patients' and families' needs or provided emotional support for patients and their families.
• Documented patients' medical histories and assessment findings.
• Set up and monitored medical equipment and devices such as cardiac monitors and alarms, oxygen delivery devices, transducers, and pressure lines.
• Educated patients, families and caregivers on diagnosis and prognosis, treatment options, disease process, and management and lifestyle options.