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Department of Medicine Night Program

Program Overview, Policies, Job Description »

ICU/DOM Nocturnist Roles and Responsibilities 

  

The primary goals of the DOM Nocturnist are to improve patient safety, resident supervision, and visibility of the Nocturnist to residents and nursing staff, without conflicting with other fellow/staff clinical responsibilities.

 

Here are a few guidelines that will help you achieve those goals.   These are the activities that the director and department chair will focus on when considering each Nocturnist's performance.

ICU

■ Come for signout at 6 PM in the ward 7400 (MICU) team room.  Speak directly with the MICU and CCU Fellows, if available for high-level signout.  Focus on key information, like which patients are acutely unstable, and which active issues should be prioritized.

■ Participate in resident signout for both MICU and CCU services.  Insist that the residents print you a copy of their paper signouts.

■ Pick up the Nocturnist pager (pgr #1010), which is located in the 7400 workroom on the bulletin board above the printers.  Carry this pager all night.  It receives Codes Blue and Rapid Response Team pages, but not airway emergencies. 

■ You are not on the Code Blue team, and you are not required to attend codes.  However, you should promptly see any patients with declining status on your services or on wards 7200 or 7400, and you should always help your team out as best you can.

■ See any new MICU or CCU admissions/transfers as early in the hospital course as possible - prior to arrival in the ICU, if possible.

■ At least once during the night, visit the 3T, 4T, and 5T nurses stations to see if there are any active patient safety issues, and to let the nurses know they can reach you if any such issues come up.  This should only take 10-15 minutes.

 

■ Write a brief progress note for any new MICU/CCU admissions/transfers, or whenever your involvement changes management significantly.  These notes should be pertinent and concise.  In Epic, use "Create in Note Writer" --> Title "progress note" --> "blank note." DO NOT write, dictate or cosign an H&P. 

■ Non ACGME fellows and Faculty may bill for procedures critical care time, if appropriate

■ Periodically throughout the night, you should personally round on the CCU and MICU patients located on wards 7200 (CCU) and 7400 (MICU)

■ Once or twice during the night (e.g. at Midnight and 4AM), contact the medicine ward admitting residents at UCI pgr 1763 to hear brief presentations of the admitted patients, and to make any appropriate suggestions.  You do not need to see these patients, and you do not need to complete any documentation. On average, this should not take more than 30 minutes.

■ Come to signout at 6 AM.  Directly communicate admissions and issues you were involved in with the MICU and CCU Fellows, if available.  If fellows are not available, communicate this high-level information to the ward senior residents.  Your signout takes priority over resident signout, but SHOULD NOT REPLACE resident signout.  You are encouraged to participate in resdient signout after your own signout, time permitting.

■ At the end of your shift, return the Nocturnist Pager (pgr #1010) to the storage area above the printers in the 7400 workroom.

■ If all of the above responsibilities are met, and you have downtime, fell free to spend it as you wish.  There is a private Nocturnist Office just outside the entrance to the MICU with a phone, computer, mattress, and a locker.  You must provide your own padlock.  Make sure you are available by the p1010 pager or by phone if you are not physically with the residents.  You are intended to be a closely cooperating team, and there should be no delay if you want to contact each other.

■ Do not leave the hospital during your shift.

■ Supervise all resident procedures, or do them yourself if they are not able.  Staff: please write or cosign procedure notes with apporpriate billing codes.

Medicine Nocturnist

■ Come to signout at 6:30 PM in the 7800 Team L workroom.  You should pick up the 4622 pager at that time, which is carried by the Team H resident during the day.

■ Go to the Team O office in the Hospatilist building at 7PM for Team O signout.  Exchange contact information with them at that time.

■ Be available by pager all night

■ When a new Team O admission is called to the NP, you should both begin evaluating immediately to determine if you agree this is an observation patient.  Guidance regarding this process will be periodically updated.

■ The Team O NP calls the ED for handoff, then writes the H&P and places the orders

■ If you disagree with the Observation admission decision, you must work with the ED case manager to identify what needs to be documented to meet InterQual criteria for inpatient admission.  You should write a note documenting what is needed. The Team O Nocturnist or NP should contact the medicine ward team to hand off the patient.  You should not insist the ED make another admission call to the ward residents.

■ If you feel the patient should be discharged from the ED, Faculty and non ACGME Fellows can admit and discharge the patient.  Anyone can write a medicine consult note recommending discharge, with a treatment and follow-up recommendations, for the ED to utilize.  Please be collegial and collaborative throughout this process, whichever path you choose.

■ The Medicine Nocturnist does an independent evaluation of the patient, and coordinates the plan with the NP.  Please review the orders and medication reconciliation to be sure the NP understands the plan and implements it correctly.

■ Faculty and Non ACGME fellows may attest the H&P.  ACGME Fellows should write a brief progress note or event note to document their evaluation, plan and supervision of the NP.  Non ACGME fellows may not bill.

■ Sign or attest CDDC admission notes for pre-procedure patients once the Night Float Resident has completed the evaluation.  This requires attending evaluation of the patient.  If the ICU Nocturnist is very busy, they can ask the Medicine Nocturnist to cover this duty - but this must be a Nocturnist-to-nocturnist request, not initiated by the residents.

■ Sign or attest medicine consults, especially pre-op consults.  You should feel free to contact the on-call medicine hospitalist for questions you are not sure of, such as the specific UCI pre-op algorithm.

Everyone

■ When submitting schedule requests, refer to the scheduling policies below.  Periodic audits are done, but it is your responsibility to comply with policies.

■ Keep an intermittent log of patient's and MRN's and dates of service in a secure location.  Twice a year, the care of three patients must be peer reviewed to maintain priveleges.

Schedules »

ICU / DOM NOCTURNIST SCHEDULES

The downloadable PDFs are updated less frequently than the embedded excel files below.

Please note the "last updated" time stamp at the top right of each calendar.

_____________________________________________

February

March

April

May

June

Scheduling Practices and Policies »

Scheduling Policy:
Individuals who are on the roster will receive an email every month soliciting schedule requests.  Please only submit requests as a reply to this email.  Requests submitted via SMS, phone call, hallway discussion, as part of an unrelated email, or as individual separate emails may not be included in the final schedule.

You may submit updated requests at any time, again as a reply to the solicitation email, until the schedule is complete.

    1. PGY4: May not work in the first 6 months of fellowship, unless it is a 1 year fellowship.
    2. No fellows or faculty may work a night shift if they are working the followign day on an inpatient primary clinical service
    3. FELLOWS MAY NOT WORK NIGHTS WHEN THEY ARE ON CALL for the fellowship (a.k.a. "double dipping")
    4. Fellows may work up to 12 shifts per quarter
    5. Faculty have no maximum number of shifts
    6. Night Shifts count toward the 80 hour work week (averaged over 4 weeks).  Fellows must follow the department policies regarding work hours and reporting.

Individual divisions may create their own moonlighting policies that will not be listed here.  You must comply with these policies.  Some program directors have asked the Night Program Director to help enforce these policies as the schedule is created.  Periodic audits of call schedules and requests will be done to help ensure compliance.

Timesheets and Pay »

Timesheet

Timesheet - excel file to fill out on computer, print, sign, scan and email

Timesheet - blank.  Print, fill in with pen, sign, scan and email

SUBMIT YOUR TIMESHEETS BEFORE THE LAST DAY OF THE CALENDAR MONTH. 

You should receive payment at the beginning of the following calendarmonth (approximately 30 days later).


Submit Timesheets to dompay@uci.edu as a Scanned email attachment

Contacts and Text Paging links »

Contacts 

Tonight's ICU Nocturnist (MICU, CCCU, CDDC, Urgent Pre-op)

 714-506-1010

Tonight's Medicine Nocturnist (Teams O&L, ED dispo consults)

714-506-4622

 MICU/CCU Resident (Admissions)

 714-506-6207

 MICU/CCU Intern (Cross Cover)

 714-506-3704

Ward Admit Resident (Medicine, CDDC admission, Med Consults)

 714-506-1763

Ward Cross Cover Resident (Pts already admitted to Wards & CDDC)

714-506-6575

 On-Call Chief Resident

 714-506-6666

 

Director, DOM Night Program:

H Clifford Fornwalt
333 City Blvd. West, Suite 400
Orange, CA 92868-3298
Zot Code (campus mail) 4076
4600 - UCI pager
cliff.fornwalt@uci.edu
 

Chair, Department of Medicine

Alpesh N. Amin
333 City Blvd. West, Suite 400
Orange, CA 92868-3298
Zot Code (campus mail) 4076
714-456-3880 - office
714-456-3871 - fax
UCI pager
anamin@uci.edu
 

Administrator, Night Program - Payroll and Fellow Nocturnists

Mary Morris
333 City Blvd. West, Suite 400
Orange, CA 92868-3298
Zot Code (campus mail) 4076
714-456-8196 - office
marymm@hs.uci.edu    

Administrator, Night Program, Staff Nocturnists

Mercedes Weston
333 City Blvd. West, Suite 500
Orange, CA 92868-3298
Zot Code (campus mail) 4076
714-456-5726 - office
mweston@hs.uci.edu   

 

Additional Resources »

Published Articles that may help you at night, particularly in the ICU.