New Nurse on Surg/Tele - Organizational Tools?

[evmarie]

Hey guys!

I just passed my NCLEX and have been working as a GN for the past month and now I have 4 weeks of orientation left before I get turned loose on my own. I will be on a Surgical Telemetry floor with 6:1 pt ratio (with a tech) and 5:1 pt ratio (without a tech).

I was wondering if anyone had some advice on how to organize yourself.

I know I need to get a routine but I wondered if anyone had some good examples of this. Maybe a good checklist of some sort?

I was thinking of getting a binder with dividers to put my MAR and updated physicians orders in every day.

Unfortunately my hospital still has paper charting so that's why I am using more primitive methods haha.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Also thank you to this site for helping me make it through the past two years. Just reading others posts sharing the same anxieties and questions helped me so much!

[OneHappyRN]

I have a sheet of paper that I carry around with me. On that paper I have columns for each pt. I have a column for vital signs, meds due throughout the shift, updates/things to do. I even jot down little things like "get pt water" b/c it's SOO easy to get distracted and forget things!

I also find that being organized w/ my meds is huge! I write down (on the above paper) what medications are due and what time they are do. So I can easily refer to my "chart" to see when I need to do something, then I cross it out once I've administered it.

Also, at the beginning of the shift, I make sure that I have all of my medications that I will need for each patient throughout the shift. It's VERY frustrating when it's 6PM (or AM) and you're almost ready to go home, then you realize you don't have a medication and have to order it from Pharmacy!