Hospice on call setupd

[NursieDP]

Hi there, I am gathering info for our consultant about other hospices in the area and how they run their on call programs with a census of around 150-300.

How many on call nurses they have

How many triage nurses

What hours/shifts they work

Do they do admissions or have admit team?

Do RNCMs take on call

What is their average census?

Average # of visits per nurse/per shift

Any info you can provide would be great, and if you have knowledge of any other hospices, that would be great

THANKS in Advance!!!

[ShesanRN]

Our census is hovering around 150 currently. We have two dedicated on-call nurses, one for weekdays 430pm-8am and one for weekends (me!) from Friday 430pm-Monday 8am. Our RNCMs serve as backup to the dedicated on-calls, one during the week and two over the weekend.

We have one phone triage nurse covering during the off hours. Admissions vary; sometimes an admission nurse will do an evening or weekend admission, other times we do them.

One thing to keep in mind when staffing for on-call is the size of the territory and desired response time. Our patients live as far as 60 miles apart, and our desired response time is

[toomuchbaloney]

private stand alone hospice with inpatient unit.

avg 250 patients in midwest

contract with telephone triage company for phone calls

team of nurses employed specifically for afterhours and weekend on call functions supplemented by per diem staff. I am currently unsure of the number of nurses on that call team, at least 4

On call staff become available at 1700 M-F and work until 0800 next morning. Weekend oncall is 1700 Friday to 0800 Monday and is generally split by a night and a day nurse. Case manager(s) and an admission nurse are completing routine are regular visits on the weekends but do no handle the calls to the oncall line/team.

RN CMs cover weekend shifts rather than call.

service area is large, making it necessary to have more than one oncall person per shift to cover the region if census is higher or patients are actively accessing oncall staff.

Deaths often get pushed to the bottom of the "to do" list as the symptomatic patient always gets the visit first. Sometimes pronouncement of death has been performed by other than the hospice nurse, particularly on busy nights with inclement weather.