IPOC

[greyL]

The hospital that I'm at uses IPOC (interdisciplinary plan of care). I'm a new grad so maybe I'm just naive about all this stuff, but I don't see the point. We have to have our IPOCs done by a certain time and basically we have to click whether we've achieved something, or it's progressing, not progressing, or regressing.

Here's the thing. My preceptor taught me just to go through them and -click click click click click, sign. All done.-

So really, what's the point?? That can't be the correct way to do it, can it? I think that some people don't even really read what's on there. I feel like it forces you to document stuff that you didn't do. =/

[dramirez7755]

Hey! You private messaged me but for some reason I cant PM back because i havent made 15 quality posts. so im reaching out on here cause I dont know how else to. You answered me on the post about Florida hospital. I got a call back from them and I'm interviewing this friday for the ER department at the florida hospital in orlando! I'm freaking out. Do you have any suggestions or any questions you remembered they've asked you? This is my first real interview and I want to try and land this job. Thanks for your reply btw!

[dramirez7755]

ughh im sorry to keep bothering you on here but theres no way to reach you other than through here. Im new to this so I dont know how else to reach you. but thanks so much for your input! and if you know another way other than PM that we can talk please let me know lol.

anyways

thank you so much! Yes I tend to ramble when I freak out about questions I wasn't prepared for. Im so excited and scared and going through so many emotions right now lol. I really want this job. Btw did you ask any questions afterwards? and what did you ask if you did? I'm thinking of asking about relocation benefits because I need to move from miami and its all so sudden.

I was thinking of saying that my weakness is having confidence, especially when I'm unfamiliar with it. But I know this is a weakness so I work on it and prepare myself before whatever arises takes me by surprise. and then give an example of it. I figured I'd be honest but then say how I work on it.

One last thing, they asked me for references of 4 of my clinical instructors and sadly most of them probably dont remember me because its been over a year. I contacted two of them and they said they would but I dont know how good it will be. The other 2 professors I cant reach. I also added two of my classmates which they were happy to fill out the survey. What did you do for your reference?

Thanks so much!

[amanda_kay,RN]

I can tell you the reason the nurses just click, click, click..

The 'IPOC' is just a reiteration of everything you have been doing for your patient, and nine times out of ten, you are going to choose progressing.(because your patient is progressing through your plan of care) For example, if your patient comes to the hospital with a blood glucose of 300, chances are you are going to initiate a plan of care that addresses abnormal serum glucose. You will be checking your patient's blood sugar regularly, administering insulin, giving a carb consistent diet, teaching about the disease process, consulting a nutritionist, etc. Sounds to me like a decent plan of care, right? Well, you can't just do your plan of care. We have to meet quality measures and prove that we do have a plan and we are acting on it. So even though you know and I know you have identified a problem, chosen a plan of actions, intervened, and reassessed, you have to prove to anyone accessing the patient's records that you have done those things. So, we click click click on our chart, chart, chart! That is the purpose of the IPOC.

[apoan]

I'm a Clinical Informatics Specialist at a hospital and I train and educate nursing staff on managing and use of the EMR including the use of an IPOC. Clicking through the IPOC as your preceptor taught you is incorrect and defeats the purpose of an IPOC, you are correct. The goal of the IPOC is to assist clinicians in creating an individualized problem-based (or at our hospital a patient-based) plan to address the outcomes, goals and interventions for the patient during the process of care. The purpose of it is to assist in assessing the active problems of the patient for that hospitalization and whether or not there's progress or lack thereof and accordingly modify the interventions by the care team to help meet the long term and short term goals prior to discharge or change in level of care.

[rkitty198, BSN, RN]

I'm a Clinical Informatics Specialist at a hospital and I train and educate nursing staff on managing and use of the EMR including the use of an IPOC. Clicking through the IPOC as your preceptor taught you is incorrect and defeats the purpose of an IPOC, you are correct. The goal of the IPOC is to assist clinicians in creating an individualized problem-based (or at our hospital a patient-based) plan to address the outcomes, goals and interventions for the patient during the process of care. The purpose of it is to assist in assessing the active problems of the patient for that hospitalization and whether or not there's progress or lack thereof and accordingly modify the interventions by the care team to help meet the long term and short term goals prior to discharge or change in level of care.

Then how are you supposed to utilize it as the tool it is meant to be unless you just click click click? It gives you basic intervention ideas, but not all of the interventions. To me all it does is cover cms quality guidelines for quality care/charting for reimbursement.

I honestly would love to know how to utilize it in my care/charting to make it more meaningful.

[apoan]

Mindfully clicking through it to chart if interventions have been done and goals have been met or not, or progress has been made is completely fine because then you are using it as intended. I was referring to just blindly click, click, clicking through it without much thought as defeating the purpose. But, yes you're correct you do have to click through it in order to chart against goals and interventions as designed.

[SonofaNurse_99]

See link for recent publication entitled "Interdisciplinary Plans of Care, Electronic Medical Record Systems, and Inpatient Mortality."

Thieme E-Journals - ACI Open / Full Text