An assistant

I'm a little confused......when you say there are 2 care plan nurses, do the care plan nurses do MDS assessments as well? Do the care plan nurses write/update all the care plans in the building? If so, that's the first mistake. Care plans are a clinical task; the MDS nurses complete assessments, they are not caring for residents. Care plans should be completed by the nurse caring for the resident, the MDS nurse, for the most part, is only doing an MDS assessment every 3 months, so then who is updating those care plans in the meantime? Probably nobody, that's what I have found. My point by all of this is that just taking the care plan responsibility off the MDS dept. would be a big help. I really don't know how much help having a non-nurse would be; she could file & take assessments around for signatures but that's probably about it.

I work in a 240 bed factility. There is an RN MDS coordinator, and an LPN. Both do MDS assessments, and write caerplans, as well as make adjustments to them on an ongoing basis. The Rn does the Medicare PPS assessments as well, and the others are split about evenly. Personally, I think an assistant woud need to be a nurse in order to be of much assistance at all. Perhaps your administratoe/DON would consider a part time nurse? She could then learn ALL aspects of the MDS?Care Plan position and cover for the regulars as well as help with tasks such as changing/updating careplans and doing assessments.

Another thought about your workload........I have found that many times the MDS Dept. IS budgeted for additional staff, however the Administrator is giving the hours to the the Clinical Nursing Staff or simply is not using the budgeted hours to save labor hours ($$$). Ask to see the budget. Most Administrators I have worked for DO NOT understand the MDS Process & how time-consuming it is. Educate your Administrator about RUGS & how much MONEY you bring into the facility.

When I was a PPS MDS coordinator for a facility that averaged 25-30 MED As a month, I had an 'assistant' who wasn't a nurse. She inputted all the MDSs into the computer, tracked all the ones which were due and put out the assessment forms in the charts, inputted all the MD orders...it was wonderful...she was wonderful and made much less than a licensed person.

Our facility calls us Care Plan Nurses, instead of MDS nurses. I believe because nobody but MDS people know what an MDS is.

As Care Plan Nurses, we do all the MDS', update care plans, we are part of the IDT, we also help complete admissions, fill-out and update resident care sheets for the CNA's to follow, coordinate appointments for our residents, put out all the 7 day ADL look-backs, 30 day Mood/Behavior look-backs, and other odds n' ends.

I believe an assistant will be helpful, basically because some help is better than no help. I don't believe I want an assistant to enter MDS', but she can put out all the look-back sheets, gather them when completed, ask CNA's to fill-in holes in the look-backs, file completed MDS' paperwork & care plans into the binders, pull out care plans that I will work on next, etc.