Monthly summaries

I would ask myself if this is the only nurse who doesn't get her summaries done?
Is it a facility wide problem or just a lazy nurse problem.
My nurses didn't tell me but one time that they didn't have time to do something. When they told me that I launched a full scale investigation to answer the question WHY? do they not have time.
I found out--Sometimes there were things that I could do to help them better manage their time. Sometimes there were things I could fix that were wasting their time. Sometimes, I found out that they had time to have an affair with the maintence man.
Make sure that the monthly summaries are as easy and quick to do as possible. Don't put too much on your med nurses. You may find an easier way to do the summaries--or you may find out that they take too many breaks.
I would investigate WHY?
Angela RN BSN former DON

Wow! I'd love to see that flow sheet! Is there anyway you could share it?

In addition to our regular charting- we do one monthly summary a shift. It's broken down by room and bed and date and posted . Usually each unit has about 36-40 residents, my unit is 7-7, so ours are done 18-20 days. Ours are mostly a checklist on the front and the back is for the narrative note, and we chart according to the care plan, thus follows the raps, triggers and mds.

Wow, that sucks your state still requires it. I live in Missouri and it's no longer a reg.,we stopped doing them a long time ago. The nurses all did the happy dance!

In our facility we have weekly charting and skin checks, quarterly reviews (fall risks, contractures, psychotopic meds, AIMS tests if needed, etc.
The are divided amongst all shifts.
I have made the nurse responsibile for the weekly charting and skin checks responsible for checking to see that the quarterly reviews are caught up. That gives them 4 chances in the month that the quarterly review is due.
Don't let me find one late.
You have to own it.

I understand completely, Either you can be heavy handed about it and demand 5 on your desk every week or appeal to your boss to give the extra hours, Only you know if they are working the way they should,
Can the job be given to night nurses? Can you relieve them of some other responsibility in order to free up time to do their monthlies?
Look I am sure you have checked out all the angles, Take a deep breath before thinking of some creative and charming way to deal with this,
You cant be too heavy handed here or you will get it back in your face.

As a night nurse, I wouldn't mind spending some time doing summaries if some of the other work was taken off my plate for the last two weeks of the month. In our facility, we start summaries on the 15th of the month and have until the end of the month to complete them. Some of them take me awhile to complete, especially new admits, and people who require different assistance on different shifts. For example, I had two residents who were physical assists on one shift for the first half of the month, who then became total dependents. From what my ADON taught me, she wanted 15 days of documentation to be able to get "points" on various aspects of the summaries. I'm not sure if she means treatment wise only, or whether the 15 days of documentation included the change from physical assist to a total dependent. If a resident is a physical assist on 7-3 and a total dependent on 3-11, then what do I go by? I am still trying to figure this one out after working here awhile...

How we split up summaries:
The two FT 7-3 nurses usually get 5 summaries to do. The FT 3-11 and 11-7 nurses usually get 6 apiece. Weekend nurses generally get 3 apiece, and the Monday 11-7 nurse gets 2-4, depending on our census.

My old ADON used to be up my butt about these on a daily basis. I'm not much of a complainer to management, but sometimes I feel as if they don't understand how unfair it seems to expect getting the summaries done in a timely fashion when you have unclear CNA documentation on what a resident's status is, and also when you expect your "off shift" to do the majority of editing at the end of the month as well. Stuff does happen time to time at night, and can be time consuming.

Sometimes I help the day nurses out when I know they haven't had the time to complete their summaries, and this past month I came in to find that my last two were done by a day nurse. What a joy! I really do appreciate helping one another out when possible.

However, from the 11-7 standpoint, I feel like it is getting harder to complete the necessary work when other responsibilities keep getting tossed onto my shift.

Yeah, if the status of the patient changes you have to redo the monthly...or just do them all on the last day of the month :-)

I assign out the monthly summaries for each nurse. It is divided by the am and pm shift. The summaries are divided to only a couple per day and are assigned according to the nurse that usually works with that resident.

The top of the monthly summary is a flow sheet for basic assessment and the bottom is to be completed bases off of the Care Plans and is numbered. For example: prob #1) Poor intake due to post surgical comps. The nurse would just write #1 and address that issue. She then goes to #2 and so on until all have been addressed. Once the problem has been resolved (surgical site healed) that problem would no longer have to be addressed.

As for ensuring that they have been completed, I have the ward clerk post the monthly summary assignment list and medical records is responsible once a week to check the charts for placement (not content). I also ask the nurses to initial when they have been completed.

It takes about 2 months and vigilance on your part (the nurses want to make sure that you are serious and that they are not just wasting their time) but then it goes more smoothly. I make sure to include a copy of this along with the expectation that these be completed timely in the orientation pack (which each new hire recieves and signs that they understand). I can't tell you how much this has helped our reimbursement from M/C and PA payers. It has also served us well during survey to show that a problem has been addressed and resolved (esp with those residents that bring up year old issues with the surveyors but forget to tell them that the occurance was a year ago).