CAT & CAA's...help!!! - Page 2

Good luck to you. I"m a brand new MDS coordinator, too. I stepped down from a Unit Manager position and am loving it. However, the CAAs are driving me crazy. I only had 9 days of training before the experienced MDS coordinator left, so I'm kind of floating on my own. Nobody seems to know how to do the CAAs in my building. Some people are just pulling triggers from the CAA worksheet and restating the Care Plan in the CAA summary. It seems very redundant.
I would love to find a way to quickly do a CAA summary. Right now, I would rather do 20 short assessments versus one large one.

I wish I had time to do these like they are supposed to be done. As it is AM mtg., clinical rounds, and corporate mtgs/teleconfernces and inservices leave me three hours a day if i am lucky. unless of course i stay late and come in early which i do, but have other responsibilities as well. with people coming and going, coming and going, not being able to open assessments without completing the prior one, i feel like a hamster on a wheel.

Your mds is due 14 days after the ard, unless it is an admission assessment (due 14 days after admission), or a significant change assessment (due 14 days after determination that a sig change is necessary). Remember, the caa's are just a pathway to the care plan. It supposed to get you thinking so that your care plans can be more effective for the resident. If you are spending hours doing caa's and filling up pages of caa notes, you are missing the point. If you don't have mds software, you need to seriously talk to your executive committee. Remember, all facilities must have ehr enabled by 2012. Well, they'll probably change that a little, but you should be aiming for it.

I basically do the CAAs the same as we did the RAPs. No, I don't write down each and every document and date i got the info from. If it's ADLs, i'll write ADL flow sheet, or therapy eval and notes etc. We already have the ARD and the time frame. If the info came from the admission hospital records, i put that, or H&P if the attending has been in and written that note.

I guess it depends on your software. We have a button on the bottom to pull up triggers. I look at that section of the MDS and coordinate it in my summary note. I basically take into consideration the reason the resident was in the hospital (i do PPS), what the resident's previous and current capabilities are and just use common sense. All these complicated examples of what SHOULD be done are idealistic. None of us has the luxury of spending that much time on an assessment, let alone be able to hold on to a chart for any length of time before someone else needs it. If someone has advanced dementia, a toileting program isn't going to work. Their incontinence can be included under skin breakdown. A bed/chair bound tube fed resident that is missing teeth doesn't need dental intervention unless they have pain or sores. Likewise if the same resident does not communicate and you can't get an accurate vision assessment, then vision is adequate for level of care. Someone else i might write is able to grasp and use utensils etc. I guess i put more emphasis on my note and i make them as short and to the point as i can.

NurseMommyRN, bless you for hanging in there with 9 days of training and "loving it"!!!:heartbeat

Nine days of training?

I got three. I am brand new at this and the CAAS are killing me.

If any of you could provide me with a sample, just one same for something general like say, Increased Risks of falls and the approaches. All I ever seem to write is "see nurses notes (or ADL sheet or whatever) and "will proceed to careplan."

I would really be grated for just one correct example and I believe I could go on from there.

Thank you.