Better Communication System

At one building, we had a binder on the unit. Every new thing was put on a form....a new diet, or restraint reduction, or whatever. ALL the staff knew to look the at the binder at the beginning of every shift. They'd have to sign that they read and understood the new info. It worked out well.

There's also the good, old fashioned Kardex....all done in pencil and updated daily with pertinent info.

We have a Kardex system for our CNA's but it is rarely looked at. I will try the binder method. Thanks.

Just a suggestion, our building started using a kardex/careplan originally for the CNA's but it never got looked at, so we started having the day shift and evening shift select 2 kardexes (one for each shift) per day and take that into report, we also have the CNA's sit in on shift to shift reports and the kardex is updated at that time if anything has changed. it has worked well so far and over the course of one month the entire 50 bed floor will be updated, then we just start over again the next month. This was started just on our LTC units not our sub-acute unit where changes occur faster and more than once in a day, we are still trying to work out something specific to address the needs in that area. But it works well in LTC areas, and the CNA's really like it and are more involved. Lets face it they are with the patients the majority of the time and are often the last people to include in discussions regarding patients and interventions that are effective, they have a wealth of information and lots of suggestions.