What’s a Charge Nurse? Role, Duties, and Salary Information
Key takeaways:
Charge nurses are skilled leaders with significant clinical experience.
The duties of a charge nurse include leading and supporting colleagues.
There are many tangible and intangible benefits to being a charge nurse.
Being a charge nurse, who manages the daily activities of nursing staff in a specific department, requires significant experience, skill, and leadership abilities. There are many reasons a nurse may aspire to be a charge nurse, like supporting colleagues, gaining a career promotion, and becoming a nurse leader.
Here’s a closer look at what charge nurses do, the career pathway required, what they earn, and why they are crucial to healthcare teams.
What do charge nurses do?
Charge nurses delegate tasks and share their up-to-date skills with colleagues, new nurses, and students alike. They are experienced in clinical encounters and often act as a resource for decision-making for the nurses’ unit.
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As unit leaders, charge nurses must exemplify leadership abilities. They ensure the unit runs smoothly and the day-to-day tasks are completed successfully. A skilled charge nurse also promotes resilience in the team by demonstrating healthy decision-making and excellent communication.
The role is stressful but rewarding. Many nurses who move up to leadership may lament leaving patient care, but charge nurses are still immersed in bedside care.
Among the various duties of a charge nurse are the following:
Coordinate with physicians to ensure adequate nursing unit support
Delegate tasks and patient assignments to nurses and unlicensed assistive personnel
Identify potential patient safety issues that may result in injury, illness, or other complications
Manage shift safety, adherence to policies, and compliance with regulations
Monitor and assist with admissions and discharges
Support colleagues with resources and hands-on collaboration as necessary
Charge nurse vs. nurse manager
While being a charge nurse and a nurse manager both involve a leadership aspect, the two careers are rather distinct. Nurse managers take a higher-level view and recruit, retain, and manage nursing staff and advocate for the betterment of their unit. Charge nurses are at the ground level and deal with immediate problems as they arise.
Differences in roles
A charge nurse provides staff guidance, supports challenging situations, and implements urgent policies and procedures. Charge nurses also monitor patients, provide education, and jump in where needed. A charge nurse is given the staffing schedule and patient census, yet will create the assignments, procedure schedules, and physician communication.
In contrast, the nurse manager addresses both short- and long-term problems, with lines of reporting to senior executives. Nurse managers have extensive responsibilities, including creating schedules, ensuring compliance with regulations, managing and communicating with staff, recruiting and training nursing staff, and improving the quality and efficiency of patient care. Nurse managers also deal with critical patient or family situations.
Education and salary specifics
While charge nurses and nurse managers are both registered nurses, there is no universal educational requirement. Charge nurse roles are generally based on career history, and can range from a diploma nursing program to a college degree. Nurse managers are usually held to a higher educational standard. Many hospitals prefer that their nurse managers have, at a minimum, a bachelor’s degree. In fact, magnet hospitals require it.
The career tracks of nurse manager and charge nurse provide a respective pay increase in the field. Nurse managers tend to make slightly more than charge nurses, though their salaries both reflect their additional responsibilities. Charge nurses can often receive overtime, while nurse managers are usually on a salary. However, the actual pay depends on your location, shift, and experience level.
How to become a charge nurse
The path to being a charge nurse requires training and experience. A charge nurse is a crucial resource for the staff, since they are intimately familiar with the floor nurse’s job.
To become a charge nurse, you must first become a registered nurse. Successful registered nurses earn a nursing degree at any level, including an associate’s, bachelor’s, or master’s degree. After graduating, they pass the NCLEX-RN exam and seek licensure by their state’s board of nursing.
The clinical history and ingenuity of charge nurses are valuable assets in their relationships with colleagues. A major reason is their prior experience troubleshooting the same problems nurses deal with every day. Mentoring is important to both the charge nurse and the mentee, because it establishes supportive relationships and encourages positive growth.
Ideally, a nurse will have a minimum of 3 years of experience to perform as a skilled charge nurse. However, some units with limited staffing resources may promote nurses to charge nurses in less time.
Becoming a leader
Climbing the ladder to charge nurse is a significant career advancement for many nurses because they act as role models, improve their skills, and show leadership. Charge nurses gain experience that will serve their careers, workplaces, and patients. A study demonstrated that nurses in a permanent charge role reported a higher satisfaction with their schedule, praise, recognition, control, responsibility, and view of leadership than staff nurses.
The bottom line
Charge nurses are skilled experts who work hard to achieve their promotions. There are many benefits to becoming a charge nurse, like a higher salary and becoming a valuable resource to your colleagues. This role is gratifying in itself, providing greater job satisfaction.
Nurse leadership guides the future of nursing, and charge nurses are a pivotal member of the healthcare leadership team.
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