New RN to home health

[china4mom]

Hello All,

I am a new RN but not new to HH. I was a LPN and was in HH.So my role has changed and it is taking some getting use to. I would appreciate any and all tips. I have been working for an agency that we only do private ins. , workers comp cases, lots of PICCS, and IVIG. Now I am working with another agency and they do Medicare and this is what is different, I am basically going to be doing just SOC with the OASIS. My question is how long should it take to do the paper OASIS?? How do you determine how long a pt needs to be seen?? How do you follow up with the LPNs that will follow, do you d/c the pt? I have never had to as I was the LPN. How many pt's/SOC OASIS do you see in a day?

Thanks,

China

[caliotter3]

This is all information that should have been provided to you with your orientation, especially when you made it known that you have not worked in this role before. You can find info here in the hh forum, but it will be more specific to the individual situations posted by others. You will need to speak to your own supervisor to find out the expectations at your agency.

[anh06005, MSN, APRN, NP]

As far as the OASIS time goes i am not quite sure. My agency has really tried to scale back the unnecessary stuff and make the OASIS easier to read. Typically our eval nurses have 2 evals per day. The visit itself take 1-2 hours typically and then they head back and do paperwork, referrals, etc. i sometimes have an eval day and do the same. Some you finish quickly and some make you want to bang your head against the wall. As far as the frequency goes we just say go with your gut. And also load them up in the beginning and taper down to give them independence and such. You also need to think about if they had an acute exacerbation or if they just need education and such. For example if we have a CHF patient come out of the hospital we usually do 3 visits first week, 2 visits for 2-3 weeks then 1 visit per week the remainder. That way we can monitor and educate and then sit back and see if they weigh themselves daily, call if weight goes up or with edema, etc. but the other day i admitted a CHF patient who was referred from MD office. She hadnt been in the hospital in a while. She was swollen and did have CHF but was not quite there habit wise so we picked her up short term for CHF (i think like 2 visits for 2 weeks then 1 visit for 2-3 weeks). So it just depends.