twright

I am looking for visitor policies or guidelines that are used in your emergency departments. We are currently being asked to relook at our visitation guidelines. Over the years we have gone trough many different phases from one only to open door. We want to do the best thing for the patients/families while keeping staff members safe. How are you all handling visitors for adults as well as for children?

Triage means "to sort" so you are correct when you say it is used to priortorize the order in which patients are seen by their acuity as well as other factors. The plan of care is the responsibility of the RN/MD collaboratively in most ED's. After you identify the problem the patient has come to the ED for, your plan of care is your documentation of the diagnostics, procedures, medications and other nursing implementations that are used while in your ED. It is probably not labled on most ed forms as plan of care. Sometimes it is found on the flowsheets or nursing notes. Most of the regulating agencies would like for it to be more clearly identified. As a nurse it is your responsibility to make sure the documentation of the patients response to those things that you have implemented is present and identifable. I'm sure you probably have all those things included in your ED chart already. Hope this was helpful.

In our ER our crosstrained unit sec/admissions counselor's should apply the braclet when the patient registration is complete. That said, it is the ER Nurse that is responsible for the patient that is accountable for making sure they have the braclet with at least two patient identifiers on them prior to any procedure, medications or diagnostics. We really try to make it a team effort.

Hi, We use manual charting at present but have just been given the go ahead to purchase IBEX. Do you have any words of wisdom to share about it?