We have recently started checking blood pressures on almost every resident almost every time before we give blood pressure medication. This was something started by a newish DON. Our computer program allows us to check how often medications and we have only held medication three times since the new orders to check were received (about four months ago).
We are also checking blood glucose more often. We have several residents who we check four times a day. We have had levels low enough to hold insulin only twice.
The same goes for pulse oximetry. We check everyone who uses oxygen at least twice a day. Several residents get checked four times a day. I can see it for the one or two who sometimes need their oxygen bumped up to three or four liters, but most of our residents run between 93% and 99% consistently. We have no orders to increase the flow rate for anything below 90%.
None of if takes a long time, but 10 blood pressures, 8 blood sugars, and 22 pulse ox readings certainly can add up to more than a few minutes!
