We serve approximately 6,000 clients per year with a nursing staff of 18, secretarial staff of two, one full-time certified flexible-endoscope reprocessor, and three schedulers. All of our scopes are state-of-the-art, high-definition Olympus scopes.
We also have the best when it comes to human resources. Our administrator, Teleatha Mortimer, RN, BSN, CGRN, CASC, is obviously very well credentialed, and our nurse manager, Sharon Western, and our relief charge nurse, Cathy Cooper, are both certified in gastroenterology nursing. The nursing staff has a total of 607 years of experience! This is an average of close to 30 years per nurse.
The nursing staff is made up of registered nurses (all cross-trained in jobs from scope reprocessing to secretarial support) who are also ACLS certified. Cross training has improved the general work flow of our unit, since the staff is able to participate in many different roles when needed. It also allows the staff to troubleshoot problem areas from a unique point of view.
The unit has three procedure rooms and 14 pre/post spaces. Each physician is assigned to one designated procedure room, per day, staffed by two particular nurses, while all patients are cared for by a specific pre-op and post-op nurse. During the past three years, we have also taken over the scheduling of all endoscopy procedures for our physicians.
This was an undertaking in itself, since the physicians work at two different hospitals, as well as Bloomington Endoscopy Unit. It has actually turned out to be a big improvement, as our physicians are now efficiently scheduled wherever they are assigned to do exams.
