computers in home care (again).

sunnygirl272 · Oct 3, 2002

originally posted by lsearl
how long was your training?

ummmm... ithink it was 2 weeks of full days....hafta check adn get back to you....

what kind of software or program are you using?

fujitsu laptops with horizons for documentation..formerly known as pathways...put out by mckesson hboc. new improved version coming out any day...can't wait....

how did you do your training?

did it in groups of ~6, with 2 mentors per class...mentors being our nurses who went through mckesson's train the trainer program....there were 4 nurses who went through it, so 2 in class doing the teaching, adn 2 free out in the real world to assist those that were live already...

feel free to pm me if i can help...i am in nystate also...

jaylkay · Oct 4, 2002

I have been working in clinical nursing for the past ten years.

Things you might think of doing:

1. bring back users 2-4 weeks after initial training to refresh skills and answer questions. They have a lot to learn at the beginning so reinforcement may help.

2. A lot of documentation in home care has federal (and possibly state) regulations. Does your application have reports of past due documentation? If yes, then get these to the nursing managers and get them to monitor and re-enforce.

3. Get user buy-in. Help them to unerstand how the system can be used to THEIR advantage. They need a sense of ownership.

4. Get the nurses innvolved in monitoring. Make it a team goal to reduce late paperwork.

good luck

PattiRN · Nov 3, 2002

Hi Isearl! Where in NY is West Clarksville? Are you with a County Agency? I work for a County Agency in Northern NY and we are about to receive laptops..next year..March with the ClinDoc program. I was told Yates County (out by Rochester) is using this program. I have stressed that the training is going to be the key.

sunnygirl272 · Nov 3, 2002

Originally posted by PattiRN
Hi Isearl! Where in NY is West Clarksville? Are you with a County Agency? I work for a County Agency in Northern NY and we are about to receive laptops..next year..March with the ClinDoc program. I was told Yates County (out by Rochester) is using this program. I have stressed that the training is going to be the key.

patti- where in northern ny are you? i am in oswego county...

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Nov 6, 2002

Isearl:

I can empathize with you! I am now Manager of Central Intake department that manages the referrals for three different homecare agencies along with being responsible for Utilization for home agency.

THe home agency has two branches. One suburban area where RN's case MAnage and get their paperwork in regularly. The other is city are where Cinical Managers were previously overwhelmed and assigned vistis on the fly with lack of effective policies for paperwork followup---often 1 month late and even had THREE Oasis recerts found undone for one patient on several occasions.

We have started implimenting HBOC Horizon Pathway system version 7.0 (still getting bugs worked out. Swear we are trial agency for this upgrade....headaches galore) two months ago. Of course intake dept starts this process.

I'm still trying to get used to should we use fast pad section or customer maintenance to admit patient and just getting comfortable now with front end of system.

My training as Pilot office group--two days.

It's been fly by the seat of my pants, trial and "do it this way today".

Part of the problem was the agency staff being trained as trainers had minimal computer expertience so my group had a difficult time. Additionally, HBOC rep teaching the trainers changed three times and updrade system implimented too early, IMO.

We just completed the first class of field staff trained on Fujitsu latops---they had four days in office, the saw two patients, came in and documented practice for one week to tweek system and last week went live in field. Two days later had general meeting to clear the air of concerns. Starting in 2 weeks, next series of class starts weekly.

RN Educator has created cheat sheets rather than just using the HBOC manual. This has helped myself tremendously.

Jaylkay had many good suggestions re getting buyin of staff.

I can now quickly print out admission statics for each agency, see which pts are not admitted that should have been with just the flick of a few buttons and results in one minute. Since we can pull up list of admitted clients by Clinical Manager, this will really help office staff to ensure that paperwork is in cause they can do daily lists themselves instead of waiting 1-2 weeks for IT to run list.

One person must be available to teach all new staff in office and conduct periodic review of staff along with " Super Users" as we call the pilot team who will help the fileld staff with ongoing training/support/troubleshooting.

WE are now doing weekly reports run by the clerks and I can see the future that late paperwork will become almost extinct with this new computer system. Know we have about 6 more months of headaches till we start crusin.

P.S.: Here that MC will have overhaul of OASIS available by December with less questions! Will let you know more after our staff attends conference tomorrow.

nursesearl, BSN, RN · Nov 6, 2002

Thanks Karen for the detailed info. I printed a copy of all the replies for our director. PattiRN, we are in Allegany County in the Southern Tier. I would not recommend ClinDoc at all, but we haven't tried another program so I cannot give an educated opinion. All our trouble may be d/t lack of administrative support. This is a county agency and seems to be run very backwards. Hope this helps. LSEARL

sunnygirl272 · Nov 7, 2002

karen,

i am jealous!!! we have had to put 7.0 on hold...we had some severe staffing issues...{now we are just stressed with our budget crunch...(we are county-run adn our county is facing a potential 67% tax hike!!!)}

anyhoo....all the bugs and quirks they keep promising will be ironed out in 7.0....

like Time&Travel disappearing with a transfer, thus eliminating the opportunity to edit it on the fly...

what do you think of the Fujitsus? i have foudn they may be a good laptop, but they don't hold up under the on/suspend/on/suspend punishment that we need,....