What areas of your HC could use a new change?

blue bag nurse · Apr 6, 2015

That sounds like a great change to make. What you described is what we do currently. If it's an OTC, we put it directly into stock meds. And we get plenty! As many times as we tell parents not to send anything, they still do. But our counselors are amazing at finding it and getting it to us. We do not return them.

We have done this with allergy medicines too, but that gets a bit sketchy some times and I'd love to find a solution for that. Parents are allowed to send OTC allergy meds, but we get a million, to we throw them into stock. But when little Hannah only takes grape claritin and we run out, it doesn't work. So we need to fix that.

I am going to have several new nurses and I want to really work on actively meshing everyone together from day one. I'll have 2 new, 2 who have been there for years. In summers past, I have been a bit passive in hoping it falls together, and it generally does. This year, more of an effort on my part.

Also, keeping track of Epi pens! Every year, we have to chase them down from our different areas. How does everyone keep track of them?!?

tining, BSN, RN · Apr 6, 2015

Meshing new people is a challenge for us too. I am thinking team building exercises, break the ice type games this year. I also team up a newbie with and oldie on our med teams - we split boys and girls meds between nurses. Also it has been confided to me that rehashing previous summers and nurses that did not mesh well did not help the new people. Maybe use positive experiences and not negative. Learned that lesson!

We keep a first aid sheet with what supplies go in what type of first aid bag - for refill purposes, and what area of camp they go. We have 'basic' first aid bags, and 'advanced.' Then we write in which area/bag and the name of the camper's epi-pen - and label it. I guard this list with my life and refer to it when we need to round them up.

Alex Egan, LPN, EMT-B · Apr 8, 2015

We serial number each epi pen and make a master list stored in a secure Google doc. I have spent the better part of four years writing procedures for first aid kits, med setup, and trip packing to various amounts of success and management buy in. This year will be the test if I go back and everyone has reinvented the wheel then it was all just a cool writing exercise.

kaufer01 · Apr 11, 2015

The biggest change we NEED to make is unfortunately one we can't make. The location of our health center is in the lower level of the same building our dining hall is in which means we have noisy foot traffic all day long (not a very restful place for sick kiddos).

I have the luxury of working with this organization year round, so we've been busy implementing a lot of changes over the winter months in preparation for our busy summer and "shoulder" seasons. (We do programs for schools in spring and fall.) We just finished a revamp of our first aid kit room with improved storage and extra counter space for packing kits - our spring/fall instructors just started and the comments so far have been awesome! We also improved the kit packing process to make it a little more streamlined and the sign out process has moved from a binder with pages falling out to a mounted white board with a line for each kit.

We've also been working on improving our ability to track trainings and when staff last had them. It's our policy that staff must have specific trainings current within the past year to be able to check out a first aid kit or administer medication (out in the field/on trips).

That's kept us plenty busy at this point. I like the idea of creating a policy change and sending a letter home to parents that we will be keeping any OTC meds that come through, especially things that kiddos aren't expected to take on a daily basis. We do allow parents to send OTC meds that their child will be expected to take on a daily basis (i.e. Claritin), but anything else we really encourage them not to send along.

Alex Egan, LPN, EMT-B · Apr 11, 2015

You need to find someone who's excel skills are advanced. Your staff training issue can be solved with a spread sheet. You can program them to flag specific dates and other things. Well I can't but someone who's Google fu is strong can.

kaufer01 · Apr 12, 2015

I have those skills, it's just a matter of finding the time to be able to implement it the way I want to. I'm moving towards a Google form as a sign in which then goes to a master sheet where I can pull out a list of all the trainings a specific person has done as well as generate a list of specific people that meet a certain criteria for trainings. I just haven't had a chance to finish it. It's also a lot of data entry since everything up to this point was tracked via paper.

Our HR person also saw it and wants to incorporate all the trainings and certifications she needs to track into the database as well so they are all in one place. This of course means re-configuring all the forms and the database since the information will look slightly different...

If only there were another 24 hours in my day!

Alex Egan, LPN, EMT-B · Apr 13, 2015

I can't say enough about Google docs. They are amazing. On check in day we have 3 or more people editing the same document. It's always up to date and accessible. Use google if at all possible. Getting the entire camp on the calendar and docs system makes it feel like we are all in the same office not spread over 30 acres.

tining, BSN, RN · Apr 13, 2015

LOVE the idea of Google docs - had no idea! The location of our HC is unfortunate as well! The rare moment we all sit on the steps - whammy - everyone 'needs' to see us.

For our trip bags (more than 1 day) I also send a sheet that is "Generics and what they do" Our lay staff have greatly appreciated this information.

I am amazed that although we are organized so differently we still have the same details that we try to shore up.

I had asked my director this fall if I could have media tape my round robin discussion with the counselors - for us round robin is when the counselors go to each specialty and get a speech on the expectations in their area. After four groups and even with my prompts, I barely get through all of the info I want them to be aware of. Well he took it one step forward and had every specialty record themselves from home. Little suggestions can go a long way...

TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP · Jul 6, 2015

The mattresses, hands down. My Health Lodge is 50 years old this year and was originally built as a small field hospital, which is much more than the camp really needs nowadays (and, really, for the past 25 years or so). There's a ward with 12 beds in it (plus two beds in the isolation rooms), on 50-yr-old hand-crank hospital bed frames, and the mattresses are original to the building. Getting the council Properties Committee to spring for a full set of hospital-grade mattresses has been an ongoing challenge to myself and my predecessors.