Documenting pain

[jyhn]

Hi all,

I am a Hospice visiting nurse and our company uses McKesson Horizon Hospice SN Hospice Routine Assessment tool to document at every visit. The area dealing with pain is very frustrating and I wondered if others have found it to be also. Does anyone have an electronic tool they feel is more Hospice friendly and if so what is it?

We are planning to change to Homebase Homecare or Homecare Homebase (not sure which) but will probably not happen for a year or 2.

Thanks in advance for any help!

JYHN

[debblynn13]

We have been having the same problem and have been discussing how it could be changed to be more user friendly. We are one of McKessons test sights and give suggestions on changes we think would help. I would love to hear your assessment of the problems and suggestions on how to fix it.

Debblynn

[ErinS, BSN, RN]

I HATE McKesson horizon! I feel like I chart on everything except the really important stuff. Charting in hospice needs to be a symptom based assessment. In addition (and more importantly) we have to be able to chart INTERVENTIONS. There is no reason to chart at all if I can not easily chart interventions as they pertain to me assessment. The pain assessment should include location, best and worst pain, interventions, and effects of pain on quality of life, as well as possible side effects r/t interventions. The frustrating thing is that Horizon actually has some of these things, but it was obviously designed by someone who works in IT and not nursing!

[tewdles, RN]

We use Suncoast. It is designed top to bottom for hospice...McKesson was designed for homecare, and so was Home Base if I am not mistaken, they can adapt to hospice but there are distinct and important differences between the two specialties.

Suncoast allows the narrative documentation to be directly related to the plan of care. Most of the comprehensive assessment is checklist and drop down...with space to add a comment. The bulk of the nurses' narrative assessment occurs on the POC in the assessment, interventions, and goals. If it is used properly anyway.

It seems as though they are okay to work with from an IT perspective...

As a case manager I find the software confusing sometimes, but after a year I feel I have a pretty good handle on it. I think that can be said of most programs though...

Having used McK, HomeBase, and Suncoast,...I think I prefer Suncoast for the hospice application. HB was pretty cool for homecare but I really don't mind McK.