Ideas for ED New Grad / Hire Pocket Manual

[Joshua21]

Hey all, I've been chosen to create a hospital specific pocket reference manual for new staff to ease transition. I know this is far from new and I know there are others in cyber land who have experience in this. I've been racking my brain trying to think of what are the useful policies a new Grad or Hire would like to have at hand in a portable pocket book. Not much success so I now turn to you all. Could you please throw some ideas at me? Again what I'm specifically looking for:

Policies and Procedures that are common but maybe slightly different in each ED

Common Policies and Procedures that are used enough to need to know but not often enough to become routine

Routine Policies and Procedures

Items that help you to hit the floor running. An example is P&P for hanging blood. I will post this in other pertinent forums but I hope to get a great response here.

Our hospital is primarily Cardiac and Neuro, 40 bed ED with,...yes with borders occasionally.

Thankyou all

Jeff

[cursenurse]

i am a new grad in the er who has made my own pocket refernece book. the blood procedure is helpful along with other policies and guidelines for some of the common procedures done in your er-don't forget procedures for transferring pt's since it often differs depending on whether the pt is going to an icu or med/surg. something i think is very important is having some of the commonly used meds with side effects, dosages, etc. that a new grad could have on hand. also consider putting a page in with phone numbers to all the units in the hospital that a nurse would need in order to transfer a pt and call report. i have found that it is very frustrating to always have to look for phone numbers. something that i had in my manual that was very helpful when i started was what color tubes to use for what blood tests.

[Joshua21]

Thankyou CN,

I'll be sure to include those and please feel free to list any others you feel would be needed. Your needs as a new grad are one of my two target groups.