Thanks for your thoughts. In our hospital, patient's usually get discharged at 10 am ( in which case I've already done their 8 am assessment) but we have one discharge nurse who is responsible for all the discharges on our unit. So it can be 3 pm and some patients are still there because she hasn't given them their papers yet, they don't have a ride yet, etc. (It's not a good system for our floor but that's another topic.) I have always treated them the same with meds, assessments, etc until they are out the door literally but have been told by a couple of the nurses who have been there a while that once they have a discharge order I should not be giving meds and doing full assessments which is why I asked what others did. I will keep doing what I'm doing then because I agree there could be a change in status.
Dec 14, '12 by Nurse ABCThanks for your thoughts. In our hospital, patient's usually get discharged at 10 am ( in which case I've already done their 8 am assessment) but we have one discharge nurse who is responsible for all the discharges on our unit. So it can be 3 pm and some patients are still there because she hasn't given them their papers yet, they don't have a ride yet, etc. (It's not a good system for our floor but that's another topic.) I have always treated them the same with meds, assessments, etc until they are out the door literally but have been told by a couple of the nurses who have been there a while that once they have a discharge order I should not be giving meds and doing full assessments which is why I asked what others did. I will keep doing what I'm doing then because I agree there could be a change in status.