Need suggestions for on call

[shebish]

I am new here. I've been in home health for a little while and the company where I work is having the nurses take on call. When the phone rings to our office it goes straight to our phone. We take on call all weekend from Fri. to Mon. morning. On top of that we have regular visits to do. There is a visit nurse as well but we have to take every referral and admit. I worked over 15 hrs in one day on the weekend. They have had an ad in the paper for an on call RN for about a year now. Do any of you have any suggestions as how to do things differently? I need a break

[annaedRN, RN]

We have 2 RNs and 1 LPN that actually work the weekend. We (RNs) tak turns (every 5-6 weekends) being on-call fri and sat 4:30 -8 only. We are also blessed to have a full time on-call sun-thurs RN. You may have better luck with finding an RN to work the weekend...that really lessens up your on-call rotations. We also have an administrator on-call that is responsible for the referrals, schedule changes, etc...but at night the calls routinely go straight to the RN on call. Hopefully I made a little sense out of how we do it.

[HmarieD]

You might discuss with your nurse manager or intake/referral nurse the possibility of asking referral sources if the SOC visit can wait until Monday. Sometimes they cam't, but often it's okay and is acceptable as long as you have a physician's order to wait longer than 48 hrs from referral date to admit date. It's good practice to then call these patients, let them know the plan and give them your agency's phone # just in case they need assistance.