help with documenting our work

[anotherday]

I am a SRNA in KY. I work at the number one facility in a large city. I am in school for my RN. My problem-I know that proper documentation by nurses proves the work they do. What can we as CNA's do to document our work so that we can show management we are working short staffed. There is a fine line we don't want to cross. We cant say we are not providing necessary care; even tho sometimes we arent. It is small things such as nail or oral care, but we don't have the time to spend with each resident to provide the care each of these people deserve. The owner is upgrading the facility and it is more a matter of saving money than anything. I was thinking of trying to come up with some type of form that we can use to document exactly what we do. Such as the group I had today, was 10 people and 4 were hoyer lifts. You figure cleaning them up, getting them up, laying them back down and cleaning them up at laydown takes a good amount of time. One was a vera lift and the resident has to use the bathroom once an hour. This client also gets a complete bed bath every day, she won't go to the shower. She takes 45 minutes just to do her because she is so particular. The management does not take these things into account. They say everyone has the same number of people and we just need to do our job better.

My goal is to find some system we can document our work accurately and take it to the administrator so we can back up what we say. I don't believe in complaining unless you can offer a solution.

Any knowledge anybody can share would be greatly appreciated.

[CoffeemateCNA]

It wouldn't help you document exactly WHAT care you are doing, but a couple of times our management has given all of the CNAs forms to document the time they spent with each and every resident. It was like a blank schedule for the day, where we filled in the start and stop times of everything:

1034-1057: Shower resident in room 102

1057-1101: Clean shower room

1101-1109: Toilet resident in room 108

1109-1115: Answer call light for room 102

1115-1127: Get resident in room 105 ready for lunch

1127-1131: Answer call light for room 102

1131-1140: Get resident in room 101 ready for lunch

1140-1143: Answer call light for room 102

1143-1144: Walk 4.3 feet down the hall

1144-1147: Answer call light for room 102

They were total pains to fill out, but at the end of the day, it was interesting to tally up the figures and see just how much time you spent with each person. You could tell by the numbers who the really, really needy people were. Management was supposedly going to analyze these to help allocate better staffing and such, but of course nothing ever came of it.

[anotherday]

Thanks, that would be a better way of doing it. It would avoid us saying well no we didn't do it because of time constraints. We have one client who gets a 45 minute bedbath EVERY day. When you have that plus another bedbath, a whirlpool, and a shower-well lets just say, it don't happen very well.