What does "primary care" mean?

My hospital is thinking of getting rid of CNA's and go to primary care. What does that mean exactly? If it means what I think it means, it means we are in for PURE HELL!!
You have it right,pure hell. One RN assigned to 4 or 5 or who knows how many ,you do it all, assessment, meds, vitals, baths, I&O,and then everything else. In my nursing life primary care has come and gone more than once over the years.

I would love this. As it stands now I dread becoming a nurse because of the lack of patie t care. Would it really be so bad if you had less patients. I would think it would make it so the patie ts got better care. If you are doing everything for them you know everything thats going on with them also.

Not trying to be a jerk, but my guess is you have no idea about how time consuming doing everything is. Five patients, total care? Oh my God. The first time you're on a busy floor in nursing school you'll see very quickly why this is pretty much impossible and what drives a lot of very wonderful RNs from the bedside.

Glycerin when they started this you got fewer patients so the benefits were as you describe. Sounds like the Greed Factor has run it into the ground.

Feeding and changing patients does not require the skills/education of an RN. All primary care does is stress out and **** off good RNs and distract from the tasks that cannot be delegated. Quote from Glycerine82I would love this. As it stands now I dread becoming a nurse because of the lack of patie t care. Would it really be so bad if you had less patients. I would think it would make it so the patie ts got better care. If you are doing everything for them you know everything thats going on with them also.

Quote from carolinapoohNot trying to be a jerk, but my guess is you have no idea about how time consuming doing everything is. Five patients, total care? Oh my God. The first time you're on a busy floor in nursing school you'll see very quickly why this is pretty much impossible and what drives a lot of very wonderful RNs from the bedside.

I don't know first hand what its like, no. In theory, it sounds good but I can understand how it would be overwhelming with 5 patients. We have two floors in my department, and one of them is usually assigned RN's with no CNAs. Most of the RNs request this assignment. They usually have 4 patients a piece sometimes 3. They do everything for them and have said they like it better because they don't have to hunt down the CNAs to do things for them. *shrugs* There aren't many CNAs where I work who give a crap and to me, Id rather do it myself but I am sure that could change once I am responsible for everything the RN is responsible for. :-)

If you want to do primary care, get a good ICU job. I always said I didn't mind working hard but I hated running up and down corridors all day long. And I hated not knowing everything about my patients if I had 6-8 of them, and being rsponsible for a CNA's work or lack thereof. In the ICU I knew damn near everything about 1 or 2 people, got to spend quality time c their families, and got to stay pretty much put all shift. Terrific.

Quote from VANurse2010Feeding and changing patients does not require the skills/education of an RN. All primary care does is stress out and **** off good RNs and distract from the tasks that cannot be delegated.

GrnTea, Thats a really good point!

Quote from VANurse2010Feeding and changing patients does not require the skills/education of an RN. All primary care does is stress out and **** off good RNs and distract from the tasks that cannot be delegated.

I had a feeling the "not liking CNA work" comment was coming. I don't think anyone actually *enjoys* changing incontinent briefs, but it's part of the job and you'll do plenty of it even with PCTs. Scratch the "probably not possible" - it's definitely not possible if you have more than 4 patients and more than 1 or 2 of them is dependent. The only times I've seen primary care somewhat work was on nights with mostly continent, mostly ambulatory patients who did not require extensive treatments, such as dressing changes.