Charge Nurse Job Description

Charge nurses or hospital charge nurses are responsible for performing administrative tasks in a ward, department or unit of a hospital. Hospitals come up with the most unexpected situations with so many different types of pathological cases. Each case has to be handled in a different manner and each case requires different treatments. Some cases are serious which require immediate attention while some are not that critical and can be treated with some simple treatments. The charge nurse handles all these functions and makes resources available to the doctors and the patients to ensure proper functioning of the hospital. A charge nurse is sometimes involved in patient care and nursing activities; therefore, he/she should posses a degree and certification in nursing. The charge nurse job description given here will make you familiar with their detailed career profile and duties.

Job Responsibilities of a Charge Nurse:

In small hospitals, a charge nurse may have to overlook the administrative duties of the entire hospital while in bigger hospitals a charge nurse's duties may be restricted to a single department, unit or ward. They are also supposed to work on rotational shifts and within a team of nurses and most of the times undertake managerial duties.

They perform tasks such as admitting the patients and discharging the patients from the hospital
It is a charge nurse's responsibility to make surgical equipments, medicines, inventories, etc., available in the hospital
They keep a track of the available rooms in the hospital and explain the terms and conditions to the patients admitted to the hospital
They are sometimes involved in patient care and nursing duties such as assisting the patients in dosage of medicines and providing guidance on healthcare for them
They overlook the duties of other nurses in their hospital and administer their shifts and duty hours in the hospital
They also have to conduct training sessions for the nurses who work under them and serve as a source of information about the administrative duties to the new nurses
Charge nurse makes sure that the hospital maintains its standards

Educational Requirements for a Charge Nurse:

Hospital charge nurses should posses a degree in nursing from accredited college and should undergo training programs and internship programs conducted by the college or hospital. Passing a nursing degree from college, they can undertake certification examinations to obtain licensure to work as registered nurses.

Given below are the certification courses offered by NCSBN (National Council of State Boards of Nursing) for entry-level nurses:

National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN/LRN)
National Council Licensure Examination for Practical Nurses (NCLEX-PN/LPN)

Skills Required in a Charge Nurse:

Charge nurses wok as the managers so they should posses ability to plan, coordinate and direct the nurses in administrative tasks
They should posses good interpersonal skills so that they can communicate with the patients and the staff and understand their problems
They should have ability to solve problems and should be enthusiastic enough to accept day-to-day work challenges
A hospital in-charge nurse should also have profound knowledge of the medications and equipments required in the departments they are working for
They should posses ability to coordinate multiple tasks at a time and mange their time effectively setting priorities to the tasks

Compensation Offered for Charge Nurse:

Charge nurses holding LPN certification were offered salaries in the range of $39,000 to $51,000 per annum while charge nurses who passed LRN examination were offered $54,543 to $76,346 per annum.

After getting considerable number of years of experience in nursing, charge nurses may be promoted to perform more advanced administrative duties of the hospital. They can apply for other certification programs as well. Hope the charge nurse job description given here helped you.