Average time to administer flu shot?

[JimmyDurham9]

I'm curious about what an appropriate average amount of time to safely administer a flu vaccine is while still making the patient feel unrushed.

Certainly there are exceptions if the patient has questions or the nurse assesses some patient need that requires further exploration, but what about a straight forward vaccine administration?

[Ayvah, RN]

The time it takes to chart would probably be the biggest factor.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

The psychomotor skill of administering the shot only takes me a handful of seconds, from the puncture to the aspiration to the injection and removal of the sharp.

As previously mentioned, it is the documentation that is most time-consuming.

[Libby1987]

For us in a flu clinic setting, after getting set up initially, the employee or patient has to complete a consent form (short one for the employee, longer for the patient), we give them an information sheet, ask the precautionary questions, draw up the dose, ask them to expose the deltoid area (one employee came in all bundled up and didn't begin to remove jacket until I asked and then still had a long sleeve that didn't fully roll up and had to wait for her to sort that out), give injection, apply bandaid. Approximately 5 min.

[JimmyDurham9]

That's been my experience too. The documentation. I'm dealing with cajoling from management to administer more vaccines an hour even though I think our nurses are going an appropriate amount of time.

They are being encouraged to use the patient's consent for as the documentation instead of using EMR and documenting site, vaccine lot and expiration, etc and not waste time assessing temps, etc.