Making assignment sheets

Diva · Nov 2, 2003

There are several different assignment sheets out there.

Tell me some things about what you definitely require in an assignment sheet. For example, do you want flexibility? Do you frequently have last minute changes (sick calls, emergent patients, unexpected new admissions)

How many hours per day does your staff work? Does the same staff work the entire day (12 or 13 hour shifts?) Or do you have some on 8 hrs and others longer?

Do your patients ALWAYS sit in the same chair, or is there a lot of flexibility in where they sit.

Last, what are you using now, what do you like about it, not like about it and is it manual (handwritten) or computerized.

I have worked with several different styles....I do have my fave, but first need to know your needs.

RockiRN · Nov 2, 2003

Brian--

We run three shifts of patients every day, and they generally sit in the same seat. (This may change if one is in the hospital and I plug someone else in their spot ) Most run four hours. Staffing is a whole different issue. Most of the day shift work eight hours, but one or two work tens (This enables an extra person to help with the PM changeover. The evening staff works ten hours and start their day at 11:00 (Helps with noon changeover). Frequently we are shortstaffed, so myself or the educator may take a pod until a night shift license comes in. Our clinic is divided into two seperate pods with one license on each side, and three or four PCTs. On a good day we may have three licenses so can divide up in smaller teams.

Our pod sheet now is one double sided piece of paper that I have a seating arrangement of patients with their ontimes, then a separate piece of paper that I staple to it with the staff assignments. We do have frequent call ins, and our numbers are not consistent either, so I make the sheet out by hand every day, and change it as callins warrent. I am desperate, any help you have will be much appreciated. Thank you.

Diva · Nov 3, 2003

Ok, This may sound confusing, but it's not......Let me try to explain our staff assignment sheet. Been using this for many, many years and it works.

First we have a patient schedule (excel spreadsheet) that it updated weekly, every Friday for the coming week. It consists of 4 main columns on each side (one for MWF patients, turn over for TTS. Each main column represents a patient shift.

Within each main column (shift column) there are smaller columns representing Station number, patient name, on time, access type (AVG, AVF, PC) and presribed hours. Any changes that occur during the week are entered in pencil. For example, HOS in pencil next to the name indicated patient in hospital. When we know of their discharge, HOS is erased and "returns 11/1" is entered.

If a patient requests a shift change for a particular day, "Not 11/3" is entered next to their name on their regular shift, and the name is placed in a blank line at the BOTTOM of the shift they will visit. Next to their name is "11/4 only".

Each day the "Staff Assignment" is done manually. After a while it only takes 10 minutes. We run 4 shift per day, and have a larger unit than you do. So, our morning staff does two patient shifts, there is a 1/2 hour staff overlap and the evening staff does two shifts of patients.

Our unit is staffed with one charge nurse and one medication nurse. Other licensed staff and techs have patient assignments.

So, we have a form, on letter size paper.

Top line: Charge______________ Meds_____________

2nd line: Day ____________ Shift _______ Date______

____________ _____________

____________________ __________________

____________________ ___________________

The Shorter lines above is where the staff persons name goes.

the longer lines are for their patient assignment. We enter on that line, station number, patient name, #hrs. This format is repeated down the page for the number of assignments you have. This is done in pencil, so last minute changes are easy to make. Also you can see at a glance if an assignment is fair (someone has only two patients because of a no-show or unexpected hospitalization, and someone else has 4) The assignments are hole-punched and kept in a binder. Nice to look back on to check up on things sometimes.

If you use pods, with techs and a licensed person, you can add another line (short one) for the licensed name. You really can modify this any way you want. If you want to see the shell documents you can pm me with an e-mail address and I will send it. It will be an attachment to the e-mail, one an excel file and the other a Word document.

Another way I have seen it done, but don't like it, is to take the patient schedule and bracket sections of patients with staff names. Too messy and confusing.

Any questions..please ask.

Diva · Nov 3, 2003

Hmmm...my attempt at showing you the format kind of failed.

The short lines (name of care person) is centered over the longer lines (for station, patient name) and there is a larger space in the middle. Hope this gives you the idea.

babs_rn · Nov 3, 2003

I don't know. I like continuity of care, be it a 3 day clinic or a 6 day clinic. Just makes sense to me to distribute the patient load as evenly as possible and schedule one group of caregivers in a two-week period: MWF/MWS and the other group TTS/TTF so that everyone takes care of all the same patients every day except for one day every two weeks. That way the staff can really know THEIR patients, all the nuances that tell you when something might be "off" with them, things that you won't pick up on when you only take care of that group of patients on a rotation. Assign duties on a monthly basis and then you won't have to worry with an assignment sheet...everybody knows what they're supposed to do.

Just a thought.

hrtnrsjen · Feb 16, 2007

hi i am also looking for an assignment sheet. Im a charge nurse and we just moved our IMCU which had rooms everywhere on 2 sides of the hall to a 33 bed floor that is assigned by modules..It is very hard ot get used to. We have 4 modules and we dischrge pts frequently. Its hard to get used to assigning pts in a new way....Any suggestions or templates would be so appreciated. Our ratio is 4:1.