Acute Care Nurses

Overview

Acute Care Nurses has a national median salary of $97,550 per year, with +5.6% projected job growth from 2025–2035. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists a bachelor's degree as the typical education needed to enter this occupation.

Description

Provide advanced nursing care for patients with acute conditions such as heart attacks, respiratory distress syndrome, or shock. May care for pre- and post-operative patients or perform advanced, invasive diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.

Work Values

• Relationships
• Support
• Achievement

Work Styles

Responsibilities

Tasks

• Discuss illnesses and treatments with patients and family members.
• Diagnose acute or chronic conditions that could result in rapid physiological deterioration or life-threatening instability.
• Perform emergency medical procedures, such as basic cardiac life support (BLS), advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), and other condition-stabilizing interventions.
• Assess urgent and emergent health conditions, using both physiologically and technologically derived data.
• Adjust settings on patients' assistive devices, such as temporary pacemakers.

Work Activities

• Assisting and Caring for Others
• Documenting/Recording Information
• Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates
• Making Decisions and Solving Problems
• Getting Information
• Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work
• Training and Teaching Others
• Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge
• Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events
• Working with Computers

Detailed Work Activities

• Providing personal assistance, medical attention, emotional support, or other personal care to others such as coworkers, customers, or patients.
• Entering, transcribing, recording, storing, or maintaining information in written or electronic/magnetic form.
• Providing information to supervisors, co-workers, and subordinates by telephone, in written form, e-mail, or in person.
• Analyzing information and evaluating results to choose the best solution and solve problems.
• Observing, receiving, and otherwise obtaining information from all relevant sources.
• Developing specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish your work.
• Identifying the educational needs of others, developing formal educational or training programs or classes, and teaching or instructing others.
• Keeping up-to-date technically and applying new knowledge to your job.
• Identifying information by categorizing, estimating, recognizing differences or similarities, and detecting changes in circumstances or events.
• Using computers and computer systems (including hardware and software) to program, write software, set up functions, enter data, or process information.

T-A-S-K

Technology, Abilities, Skills & Knowledge

Education

Education Levels of Current Workers

The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists a bachelor's degree as the typical education needed to enter this occupation. The chart below shows the highest level of education held by people already working in this field, ages 25 and older. It includes workers who earned more education than the job requires and workers who entered the field under earlier requirements, so the largest bar is not the entry requirement. For example, if someone finished a master's degree and then started working in this field, they are counted under “Master's degree” here, but the job itself typically asks for a bachelor's degree.

Certificates

Certifications applicable to Acute Care Nurses:

Video Resources