Rn First Assist Surgery

Northridge Hospital Medical Center Registered Nurse First Assistant All employees are expected to perform their duties in alignment with the vision and values of the organization. The person doing this job is responsible for a variety of tasks that lead to a high level of customer satisfaction in the most cost-effective manner with respect and dignity. The Registered Nurse First Assistant is a professional Registered Nurse and is a specialized area of practice. Registered nurses practicing as first assistants in surgery are functioning in an expanded perioperative nursing role. First assisting behaviors are further refinements of perioperative nursing practice and are executed within the context of the nursing process. These behaviors include certain delegated medical functions that can be assumed by the RN who is qualified to practice as an RNFA. Registered nurse first assistant behaviors may vary depending on patient populations, practice environments, service provided, accessibility of human and fiscal resources, institutional policy, and state nursing regulations. The Registered Nurse also may provide professional nursing care to patients of all ages in accordance with individual needs, physician orders, Hospital policy and standards of nursing practice. The RNFA is a perioperative registered nurse who works in collaboration with the surgeon and other health care team members to achieve optimal patient outcomes; has acquired the necessary knowledge, judgment, and skills specific to the expanded role of RNFA clinical practice; intra operatively practices at the direction of the surgeon; and does not concurrently function as a scrub person. preoperative patient management in collaboration with other health care providers, such as performing focused preoperative nursing assessments communicating and collaborating with other health care providers regarding the patient plan of care, and intraoperative performance of surgical first-assistant techniques as in using instruments and medical devices providing surgical site exposure, handling and/or cutting tissue, providing hemostasis, suturing; or other defined practices as described in the allied health privileging process via the oversight and approval of the Hospital medical staff.