New and have a question for CNA/RN who work in a hospital? This is for an assignment.

Hi! I am doing an assignment for my technical reporting class. It is a feasibility report. I want to do it on how to improve the CNA shift report at the hospital I work at.

My question is how do you recieve report when you start the shift? Do you have an end of shift report? Are there any ideas or complaints about the way yours occurs? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much for your time!

Pocamom

[EricTAMUCC-BSN, BSN, RN]

Originally posted by Pocamom

do you recieve report when you start the shift? Do you have an end of shift report? Are there any ideas or complaints about the way yours occurs?

When I was working as a nurse tech. on the oncology floor of a former hospital there wasn't any type of report for the CNAs/ Nurse techs. All we received was a grid with a blurb of information for each patient. We called these grids "brains". There was no end of shift report. The only complaint I have about not having report is that you were not sure which patients you needed to take extra precautions with (ie masks when working around body fluids) because the floor was inconsistent about placing precaution signs on patient doors. The nurses were too busy to tell us about these patients. For this reason I was exposed to blood from an HIV patient. Even though the droplets landed on my skin and I was still furious that no one bothered to mention this patient's disease state. I would have had my mask and face shield if I had known.

[Uptoherern, RN]

when I worked med/surg, the rn's would report off to each other at the beginning of shift. The cna's would do the same with each other. We did "team" nursing, by which I mean. It would be one RN with a CNA,and we would have a team of usually 8 patients. By the time I got out of report, the CNA would be getting vitals. By the time I was done writing my med times down, she would find me (or vice/versa), and we would give report to each other. She gave me vitals, and i would tell her who had accuchecks, who needed post-op vitals, who needed to walk, be NPO at a certain time, guiac stools, etc.

I thought it worked out pretty well.

[rpbear]

When I worked as a CNA we got report from our nurse at the begining of each shift. Report included drains, foleys, NGs, PT schedule (ortho floor), who was NPO, who was total care or a feed, who was going to tests or to surgery who was going home or to rehab facility so we made sure this person was ready. We also go a I&O sheet and patient census sheet with name room no, age, Dx, how many days post op etc. It worked out great, you have to have good nurse/cna relationships though and you need nurses willing to take the time to do CNA report. I think in the long run it would save time because you don't have the CNA's asking you a million quest, or having to hunt them donw to do something for you. We didn't give end of shift report, just filled out he I&O sheet and gave it to the RN at the end of shift.

Molly:D

[francine79]

At the hospital I work at we sit in on the nurses report and are able to pick up information. However, it is geared more towards the RN's although some of it is helpful to us, it's not effective. It would be nice if CNA's were able to report to each other.

[maeyken]

Although I worked in LTC, not a hospital, maybe this will be helpful for you! We received report from the nurse from the previous shift, and the nurse for our shift was also present. We all went in this little glassed-in room (so that we could see what is going on, but at the same time maintain confidentiality of information).

Depending on the day, report took from 5-15 min. Usually we just covered anything significant that was happening, and/or any specific questions we had, rather than going through the whole census each day, since pretty much all the residents stay the same). We each had a list of our residents, and took notes on it as we went through report. (Very helpful!!!)

As for end of shift report, mostly this took place in the nursing station while we were doing our charting. We were responsible for informing the nurse about anything significant. But this also took place throughout our shifts, so often there was nothing really to report.

Hope this was helpful!

~ Mae

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

If you do a search on this site about report you will find quite a few threads on the subject.