How do your nurse assistants get shift report?

[Riseupandnurse]

I am interested in how your hospital nurse assistants get shift reports. When I was an NA, the charge nurse would spend about 10 minutes at the beginning of the shift filling us in on the patients and what needed to be done with them. Now that I am a nurse (20 years), the nurse assistants give oral shift reports to each other. Some things are missed, and the focus is sometimes not appropriate, IMHO. There are no updates from the nurses to help out. The nurses are going their way and the NAs are going theirs, and I don't think this contributes to teamwork. In addition, it seems to me that the NAs have the idea that really they are "in charge" of their own workload and what should be done, which sometimes is a problem. How do you do it in your hospital?

[LibraSunCNM, BSN, MSN, CNM]

On my unit I work nights, 8p-8a, but the NAs work 8 hours, so by the time I get to work, the 4p-12a NAs have already gotten report. Then, we fill out report sheets for the 12a-8a group, with basic info like diet, activity level, any tubes or drains that need to be kept track of, etc. We each fill this out for the patients we have, and then the sheets are photocopied so each NA coming on has info about every pt. on the floor. Then we give them verbal report, and anything we forgot to write, they'll make note of. It works pretty well, although I'm a new nurse so I haven't seen any other system.

[GaMBA]

I'm a relatively new CNA (certified back in October). At the LTC where I prn'd for 3 wks, I never got report of any kind from anyone. Just showed up and did my thing, figured each resident out as I went, with updates here and there from fellow aides. The nurse would let me know which residents needed a shower/bath that day and that was pretty much all I'd ever hear from them. Luckily I tended to be placed on the same hall every time I went in so I got to know my residents pretty well.

At the hospital where I now (very thankfully!) work, the techs from the previous shift give me report. I just started working the floor last week so everything is still new to me, and I don't know if this is how it's done all over the hospital. We also get a printout of all of our assigned patients and their basic info, like age, what they're in for, diet, room, etc. During report we fill in any verbal info provided, like on O2, self-care, trach, etc. The nurse lets us know about things like specimens needed and discharges, etc.

[truern]

Our CNAs use a report sheet and also get report from each other. If I have a patient with q2h turns or a 24 hour urine, for example, I let my CNA know to see if I'm available for turns and to keep the urine on ice.

Basically, it boils down to if I have a decent CNA or not. Some of them spend more time on the phone or online that doing actual patient care, yet look for me to help them with EVERYTHING. I've had to remind some that while I can do their job, they can't do mine. If I'm not tied up with signing off and carrying out orders, checking important labs, scheduling procedures, etc I DO help.