Policies and Procedures

[bellzybub]

I'm currently in a position that provides an incredible amount of autonomy. I'm a nurse manager with a facility that provides single shift coverage. We are growing and due to the growth I will be doubling my staff at a projected rate of q2 years. A pretty awesome situation. I have plenty of management experience outside of nursing (previous career) HOWEVER there are no real policies or procedures for nurses/medical care in this facility. I now need to produce good & fair policies! We will no longer be a tight team of 5 people that works closely and in support of each other. So, I'm looking for ideas on EVERYTHING...We are 24/7 residential setting. So Holiday rotation policies, Vacation requests, "procedure guidelines," documentation guidelines, Per-Diem/Pool nurse policies or incentives ...Everything. The regulations for our particular facility are very loose and have minimal requirements. Our current policies do not work because they are designed to be all or nothing. Our Patient education policy is like 3 pages long and the policy for tracking and destroying narcotics is not followed and would be illegal if followed. I've been a practicing nurse for about 10 years mostly in hospitals. I've seen policies that were great and some that suck. I would love any input if you worked with a good policy that you liked.

[txredapple79, BSN]

I helped build my companies P&P's know that no matter what you put in place you will make someone unhappy. Now what we did for holidays is ask for volunteers first with the understanding that everyone will end up working 2 holidays a year. If we have gaps, anyone that hasn't worked is in the pool to be chosen. It has been working pretty well. PTO request must be submitted when the schedule is opened and closed when we close the schedule, business needs will come first (basically means, if too many people request off someone will not be awarded the time off) We developed documentation templates of required documentation elements. It is ever evolving and what I consider not fun but needed. Best of luck!

[Geowhindsey]

Oh dear the dreaded policy and procedures! This is an ongoing project for our hospital as well. I would look first and foremost for your facility “policy on policies” or policy development policy. If there is not one that would be where you should start. It should set forth who can write and develop policies. Who can submit and approve and what the approval chain will be. For example the approval chain for clinical vs non-clinical. You should have a policy and procedure committee that pulls in front line as well as managerial and admin staff. As for the policies themselves if you are starting from scratch, which may be a good idea if they are so outdated they’re illegal (I feel this pain) try Lippincott. Great resource for policies and procedures! And before all of this start with an online policy management system. That is the single greatest thing that ever happened to us! We use one called Policy Stat. I have never used any other system so I am NOT plugging one over the other, but I love this particular system. We sent them all of our policies electronically and they uploaded them to the site. We had weekly phone conferences and training with them and great support all through the process. We started by uploading all of our old policies and then updating them in batches. Best idea ever!! Good luck!