Top 12 ER RN Skills to Put on Your Resume
In the fast-paced and demanding environment of emergency rooms, ER nurses need a unique set of skills to excel and provide the best patient care. Highlighting these top skills on your resume can sharpen your application and help you stand out as a capable, cool-headed ER RN.
ER RN Skills
- Triage
- ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support)
- PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support)
- TNCC (Trauma Nursing Core Course)
- EKG Interpretation
- IV Insertion
- Epic (Electronic Health Records)
- Cerner/Oracle Health (Electronic Health Records)
- Phlebotomy
- Ventilator Management
- Wound Care
- BLS (Basic Life Support)
1. Triage
Triage in an ER setting means rapidly sizing up patients on arrival, sorting by severity, and steering the sickest to immediate care without delay.
Why It's Important
Triage directs attention to those who need it first. It protects outcomes, tames chaos, and uses people and resources where they matter most.
How to Improve Triage Skills
Sharper triage comes from focused practice and structure:
Enhance training: Seek ongoing triage education and refreshers through your hospital or professional organizations such as the Emergency Nurses Association.
Use a standard tool: Follow a validated system like the Emergency Severity Index to keep prioritization consistent and defensible.
Leverage tech wisely: Triage software and decision support can tighten assessments and speed throughput when integrated into workflow.
Tighten communication: Close the loop fast with providers, charge nurses, and registration to reduce delays and missteps.
Collect feedback: Debrief tough cases. Track door-to-provider times, left-without-being-seen rates, and reassessment timeliness to spot gaps.
Dial these in and you’ll cut wait times, improve safety, and keep the front end flowing.
How to Display Triage Skills on Your Resume
2. ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support)
ACLS covers advanced assessments and interventions for cardiac arrest, ACS, stroke, and unstable rhythms—recognition, algorithms, meds, defibrillation, the works.
Why It's Important
In the ER, seconds are slippery. ACLS gives you the frameworks and hands-on skills to make high-stakes calls and act decisively.
How to Improve ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support) Skills
Make it automatic under pressure:
Stay current: Review the latest AHA guidelines and focused updates; align with your facility protocols.
Run simulations: Practice mega-code drills regularly. Rotate team roles. Build muscle memory.
Refresh consistently: Schedule renewal courses early and seek scenario-heavy offerings.
Master ECGs: Practice rhythm recognition daily—rate, regularity, P waves, intervals, QRS width, ST changes.
Communicate crisply: Use closed-loop communication and clear role assignment during resuscitations.
Keep fit: High-quality CPR is physical. Stamina matters for effective compressions.
Repetition breeds calm. Calm saves lives.
How to Display ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support) Skills on Your Resume
3. PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support)
PALS prepares you to assess, stabilize, and resuscitate infants and children with respiratory failure, shock, or cardiac arrest, using pediatric-specific algorithms and dosing.
Why It's Important
Kids aren’t little adults. PALS bridges that gap so you can move fast and safe with pediatric emergencies.
How to Improve PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) Skills
Keep pediatrics from feeling rare and rusty:
Review guidelines: Track PALS updates and practice dosing calculations, normal vitals by age, and weight-based meds.
Hands-on sims: Join pediatric mock codes and high-fidelity simulations, especially airway and shock scenarios.
Peer drills: Case reviews and team debriefs surface blind spots quickly.
Reflect after cases: Short hot-washes post-event cement learning.
Stay certified: Keep your PALS current and plan renewals early.
How to Display PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) Skills on Your Resume
4. TNCC (Trauma Nursing Core Course)
TNCC trains ER nurses to deliver organized, evidence-based trauma care—rapid primary and secondary survey, prioritization, and coordinated interventions.
Why It's Important
Trauma is messy. TNCC gives you a shared language and sequence so teams move in sync and patients get what they need fast.
How to Improve TNCC (Trauma Nursing Core Course) Skills
Turn the framework into instinct:
Active practice: Seek hands-on labs and trauma simulations through your hospital or professional groups.
Stay updated: Review the latest TNCC manual and organizational updates periodically.
Drill assessments: Rehearse airway, breathing, circulation checks, disability, exposure—time yourself.
Find a mentor: Pair with an experienced trauma nurse for bedside pearls and real-world nuance.
Network: Participate in trauma committees or nursing forums to share cases and advances.
Broaden your base: Complement with courses in imaging basics, hemodynamics, and shock physiology.
Reflect: After every trauma, note wins, near-misses, and one thing to do better next time.
How to Display TNCC (Trauma Nursing Core Course) Skills on Your Resume
5. EKG Interpretation
EKG interpretation means reading the heart’s electrical story quickly—spotting dangerous rhythms, ischemia, or infarction—so treatment isn’t late.
Why It's Important
Because ST elevation, torsades, high-grade blocks, and hyperkalemic changes won’t wait for a second look.
How to Improve EKG Interpretation Skills
Make a method and stick to it:
Nail the basics: Rate, rhythm, axis, intervals, morphology, ST/T changes. Know normal, then you’ll catch abnormal.
Be systematic: Use the same checklist every time to avoid misses.
Daily reps: Read multiple tracings per shift. Pattern recognition blossoms with volume.
Simulate scenarios: Mix in case-based drills—brady with hypotension, tachy with wide QRS, ischemia in disguise.
Course or workshop: Take structured EKG courses, then apply at the bedside the same day.
Stay current: Skim cardiology updates and clinical pearls from reputable journals.
How to Display EKG Interpretation Skills on Your Resume
6. IV Insertion
IV insertion is establishing venous access with a catheter so meds, fluids, and blood products can move when they need to.
Why It's Important
It unlocks rapid treatment. No access, no therapy. In emergencies, that’s everything.
How to Improve IV Insertion Skills
Accuracy first, speed follows:
Know anatomy: Map common sites and their quirks; assess vein size, depth, and mobility.
Pick the right catheter: Match gauge and length to purpose and vessel—use your facility’s selection guide.
Prep the vein: Warmth, gravity, proper tourniquet placement, and patience. Consider vein-finding tools for tough sticks.
Practice deliberately: Simulation labs and supervised attempts build confidence without cutting corners.
Review each attempt: What helped? What hurt? Small tweaks add up.
Stay aligned with standards: Follow infusion therapy guidelines and your hospital’s policies.
How to Display IV Insertion Skills on Your Resume
7. Epic (Electronic Health Records)
Epic is a widely used EHR. It helps ER nurses document care, find critical information fast, and coordinate with the care team in real time.
Why It's Important
Good documentation isn’t just paperwork. It’s safety, billing accuracy, decision support, and continuity of care wrapped together.
How to Improve Epic (Electronic Health Records) Skills
Work smarter inside the system:
Use your organization’s training: Complete role-specific modules and tip sheets provided by your Epic educators or superusers.
Customize: Build SmartPhrases, SmartLinks, and SmartLists for common scenarios; set up favorites and order sets.
Practice during lulls: Short bursts of exploration off-peak can pay off when the department surges.
Share tricks: Swap workflows with peers and superusers; adopt what saves clicks.
Close the loop: Send feedback to IT for pain points that training or build changes can fix.
How to Display Epic (Electronic Health Records) Skills on Your Resume
8. Cerner/Oracle Health (Electronic Health Records)
Cerner, now part of Oracle Health, is a comprehensive EHR platform for managing histories, orders, results, and documentation—core to ER throughput and safety.
Why It's Important
Fast access to the right data trims delays, prevents errors, and keeps teams aligned across shifts and services.
How to Improve Cerner (Electronic Health Records) Skills
Trim the clicks and boost clarity:
Keyboard shortcuts: Learn the key combos you use most to navigate quickly.
Personalize views: Tweak display settings, tracking boards, and templates to match your workflow.
Auto text and macros: Create reusable phrases and documentation macros for speed and consistency.
Stay current: Attend hospital-led upgrade trainings and review tip sheets after version changes.
Go mobile when available: Use approved mobile tools for alerts and quick chart checks.
How to Display Cerner (Electronic Health Records) Skills on Your Resume
9. Phlebotomy
Phlebotomy is drawing blood safely and efficiently for labs, transfusions, and treatments—an ER constant.
Why It's Important
Labs drive decisions. Quick, accurate blood collection speeds diagnoses and treatment pivots.
How to Improve Phlebotomy Skills
Technique, comfort, and safety all matter:
Practice with intention: Simulation first, then supervised reps—focus on smooth entry and minimal re-direction.
Know your equipment: Choose needles and tubes appropriately; confirm order of draw and labeling steps.
Communicate: Calm, clear explanations reduce anxiety and vasovagal episodes.
Follow standards: Align with current phlebotomy and infection-control policies in your facility.
Seek feedback: Ask experienced peers to observe and coach.
Mind your ergonomics: Good body mechanics and hand strength reduce fatigue and improve precision.
How to Display Phlebotomy Skills on Your Resume
10. Ventilator Management
Ventilator management in the ER includes initial setup, vigilant monitoring, and adjustments for invasive ventilation—plus familiarity with noninvasive methods like BiPAP and high-flow nasal cannula.
Why It's Important
It balances oxygenation and ventilation while avoiding harm—barotrauma, volutrauma, auto-PEEP, and infection risks.
How to Improve Ventilator Management Skills
Precision comes from practice and partnership:
Understand modes and settings: Assist-Control, SIMV, pressure support, PEEP, FiO2, tidal volume by ideal body weight.
Watch synchrony: Read the patient and the waveform. Fix asynchrony early—adjust triggers, rise time, or sedation per protocol.
Follow protocols: Apply lung-protective strategies and ARDS approaches when indicated.
Train regularly: Attend respiratory therapy in-services and run ventilator scenarios in sims.
Huddle with RT and MDs: Collaborative rounds sharpen settings and weaning decisions.
How to Display Ventilator Management Skills on Your Resume
11. Wound Care
Wound care means assessing, cleaning, dressing, and tracking wounds to support healing and prevent infection—tailored to the wound and the patient.
Why It's Important
Good wound care prevents complications, shortens healing time, and improves comfort. In the ER, it also sets the stage for safe follow-up.
How to Improve Wound Care Skills
Be methodical yet nimble:
Assess fully: Type, depth, contamination, neurovascular status, tetanus needs, and foreign bodies—document clearly.
Clean correctly: Irrigate thoroughly with appropriate solutions and pressure; avoid harsh agents on viable tissue.
Choose the right dressing: Match to exudate and location—gauze, films, foams, hydrocolloids, alginates, or negative pressure when indicated.
Prevent infection: Use antibiotics only when appropriate; teach warning signs and return precautions.
Manage pain: Local anesthesia, analgesics, and gentle technique matter.
Educate: Clear home care instructions, dressing change frequency, and follow-up timing.
Plan follow-up: Coordinate with wound care, surgery, or primary care as needed.
How to Display Wound Care Skills on Your Resume
12. BLS (Basic Life Support)
BLS is the foundation—CPR, AED use, and airway maneuvers to keep circulation and breathing going until advanced care takes over.
Why It's Important
High-quality BLS is the single biggest lever for survival in cardiac arrest. Everything else builds on it.
How to Improve BLS (Basic Life Support) Skills
Simple, relentless, effective:
Refresh annually or sooner: Review updates and practice the latest compression and ventilation standards.
Simulation reps: Run short, frequent mock codes to sharpen timing and teamwork.
Team practice: Rotate compressor, airway, and recorder roles; use timers and feedback devices when available.
Fitness and form: Depth, rate, full recoil—sustain good compressions without fading.
Know your equipment: Check AEDs, bag-mask devices, and suction setup at the start of shifts.
How to Display BLS (Basic Life Support) Skills on Your Resume
