ER Documentation

[smlm1]

Our management has informed the ER that we are now required to document a nurse/pt. contact every 30 minutes. The effort is to increase PG satisfaction surveys. I feel this is a bit too often when your trying to care and treat multiple patients. Our ER currently surveys 100% of patients. We would like to know what other ERs are doing related to pt/nurse contact. Any thoughts, opinions or links to related dated would be appreciated. Thanks

[Nure E]

I work in a 10 bed ER and we currently do not have any rules on how often we are documenting on the patients. We are required to check in with our patients every 30 minutes for updates and I try to document each time I go in the room because in most peoples eyes, if you did not chart it, you cannot prove that you did it.

However, I am also the house supervisor who works in the ER and I cannot really check on my patients if I am somewhere else in the hospital. My co-workers do not chart evey 30 minutes on my patients while I am away and if I do not chart that I reported off to my co-workers it looks like I abandoned my patients. So I do it to cover myself.