STAT nurse Paul Ambrosino responds to a page and assists with a patient transport.
The STAT nurse pager no longer has separate pager numbers for day and evening hours. Effective immediately, access to the STAT nurse is through a single pager number, 31469. The change was implemented in order to avoid confusion among nurses with rotating shifts.
The STAT nurses of the ICU float pool respond to emergency situations throughout the hospital whenever unit-based clinicians call for immediate help. “This change makes it easier and more efficient for us to help fellow clinicians throughout the entire hospital,” Liane Morgan, BSN, RN, night STAT nurse, said.
STAT nurses respond to codes being called, transports that require monitoring, nurses seeking assistance with severely ill patients, or even nurses who are overwhelmed and just need an extra set of hands. Also, Procedural Sedation is now covered within the STAT nurse paging system.
More than 35 of them respond to the STAT beeper, which doctors, nurses and staff call when something is going wrong and they need immediate help, any time, day or night. “We are used as a resource for the entire hospital,” Morgan said.
STAT nurses play a critical role in ensuring the safest environment for patients at BWH while providing support and help for their colleagues throughout the institution.
“Due to their familiarity with the variety of clinical care specialties and their ability to render rapid assessments and interventions, STAT nurses aid in health promotion, often times decreasing the need for patient admission into an intensive care unit,” Jim Roche, BSN, RN, Med, nurse in charge, Float Pool, said.