Getting care plan info to your staff

[ejpip1]

I am the administrator of a long term care facility. It seems that we spend a lot of time writing care plans but I don't believe they get where they are supposed to go - to the staff caring for the residents. I was wondering if anyone can tell me how they go about letting the aides know what is to be done for the resident without printing out the entire care plan they then would have to muddle through. Has anyone tried using pictures on a board, etc. that would give information without violating HIPPA? I'll take any suggestions. Thanks

[southernbeegirl, BSN, RN]

Our facility tried something that ended up being very successful.

On the inside of each patien't closet (inside a folder that had a Hipaa warning on the outside) we kept basically a kardex of each persons needs...amount of assist needed, type of transfer, feeder or not, continent, anything that pertained to them. now, if you dont know what a patient needs, just open the closet and see.

[ejpip1]

I was hoping to use something you could see at a glance while caring for the resident. We have tried putting information inside the closet door but unfortunately it is not always updated as it should be. We have dots on doors to indicate how much help needed for transfers, colored tape on SRs that are to be left down, etc. I'm thinking of making a board with felt and colored pictures with velcro that would reflect their care, i.e. picture of bee for honey thick liquids, cup of juice to encourage fluids, picture of an alarm for personal safety alarms, a tree with falling leaves to show someone at risk for falls, etc. Has anyone tried doing anything like this? I know of one facility that made mobiles with this kind of information. I don't have time to do that! Wish I did!

[CapeCodMermaid, RN]

We have care cards. This is the second facility where we've used them and I find them very suucessful. They are small and easy to carry in a pocket...done in pencil and are up dated at least quarterly or with a sig change or fall.

If I were a CNA (and I was one years ago) I would be mightily insulted if you created a board for me to use that looks like it belongs in a pre-school.

[infectionRN]

At our facility we use CNA assignment sheets. Each morning we go through all the orders from the previous day, we then give them to the medical records girl and she inputs the information. It is mandatory that everyone carry one in their pocket for their assignment, works great. This are good when someone gets pulled to another unit as well.

[achot chavi]

We also have unit meetings every week which we keep minutes of and each week we highlight and discuss the careplan of every new patient and if there arent new patients that week we pick problematic patients. Often the SW , OT, PT, DON and Dietician sit in and add their two cents, Those who arent at the meeting are supposed to read and sign the minutes and we take 2 minutes at the start of each meeting (which lasts about 45 minutes) to review last weeks meeting.

Care cards sound great but I don't think I'd get cooperation from my staff who just want to quickly do their work so they can go on cigarette break.

Truth is we don't have that much staff turnover so the staff know the patients pretty well and know the care needed- its a problem when we float staff and when we do I make sure they work paired with a seasoned CNA

[vampiregirl, BSN, RN]

The facility I work at has CNA assignment sheets too. Ours is a grid with ADL's, transfer info, precautions etc. on one axis and residents on the other axis. We also also required to carry it with us. Very helpful, especially for PRN staff like me who isn't necessarily familiar with all the residents.