How do I know what is required for me when it comes to state

[Mrsvirgomama, BSN]

I normally work night shift and state has not come during my shift. I was talking to the evening shift nurse who has been there for many years and I asked her how did she know the guidelines or whatnot and she said they learned them in school. I never learned any of this during my LPN program and but just picked off stuff here and there. Management is not really of much help (basically none).

[amoLucia]

Contrary to what many may tell you, state survey members/teams CAN & DO make facility visits on the odd shifts. Altho VERY infrequent, it is a possibility. Your responsibilities would be that you are doing whatever it is that you SHOULD be doing anyway, like hands-on pt care, med pass, documentation, unit duties, ONLY you need to be doing them the correct way, that is, not taking any shortcuts.

Just FYI, you can access the facility's latest survey report; it can tell you where its weakness and poor practice exist. There's all kinds of info there incl official R & R. State visits usually occur within a specific window of time. So knowing when your last survey was can help. But again, State can visit anytime.

And it is true that with longevity one does pick up many of the fine nuances of what surveyors look for. The long-time staff do know lots.

There has been numerous postings here on AN that can give you more details (I know because I've responded ).

Just keep on researching using the Web for help.

Good luck.

[Golden_RN, MSN]

Go to nursinghomecompare website to read past survey results. "Ideally" survey should be business as usual, assuming that your normal practice includes following policy & procedure and best practices. I have seen surveyors come in at the very end of noc shift, and I have seen them actually telephone noc shift to ask them general questions. But generally day shift gets the brunt of the survey. In my opinion, the hardest part of survey is when they follow nursing during med pass and treatments.

It's unfortunate that your management isn't doing some sort of survey prep. At the least you should be given some guidance on how to answer questions that you expect to be asked.

[lumbarpain56]

I always worked evenings...for the most part...State surveyors came and just asked questions pertaining to proper protocol to certain things like what to do when there is patient abuse or a patient hit another patient.....I think it was because at the time patients in my facility were notorious for hurting each other. .. Review your policy and procedure book...on a good nite. Hippa guidelines...patient call bells with prompt answering, meds/treatment, and know your medication RIGHT list....right patient, right medication, right dose, right time, right route and right documentation.