andre

I'm a new grad and I've been offered a job in a Shriners hospital....anyone have any experiences to share about Shriners' new grad program? Goodness, I feel so honored and excited....and, well, petrified! I never thought I'd be hired--it was a tota...

Our agency is on an EMR so it's really only consents, port DNRs/copies of advance directives and pharmacy auths to turn in. The expectation is to turn everything in within 24 hours of the admit. Or 24 hours of the revocation/discharge. And ok to fax ...

arggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh.:banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead: I can't possibly be the only one trying to figure out how we're supposed to have any time left to see patients with all the new documentation requirements??????

What we have done in these scenarios is explain to the pt and family that if they call 911 or go to ER without calling us first, they are revoking their hospice benefit as that is outside our plan of care. There are occasions where we will ok hospita...

Ok. I totally understand that nursing is a 24/7/365 operation. Really. And I knew when I went to nursing school that I'd be working weekends and holidays, and planning my vacations six month in advance, at least while I worked in the hospital setting...

I had this same experience when I had the flu a few years back....missed two consecutive days of work and was required to get a doctor's note. I went to my MD's office but saw a covering MD who, when I told her why I was there shook her head and said...

I'm not case managing any longer, but when I did I carried a caseload of 12 and generally did 4 visits and several phone calls per day. Five visits was BUSY and happened sometimes, but I never did more than that.

Our agency is now on Road Notes, which is fine but is not terribly intuitive. I hear GREAT things about HealthWyse (have a friend who is a project manager for that company). I've heard very mixed reviews about McKesson, but have never seen it.

LOVE my Ultrascope! I hear much better with it than my (double the cost) Littman.

So my usual morning routine goes like this: print my report sheet, and start putting in my little boxes for med times, assessments, etc (yes, I'm the OCD nurse), while I wait for the night nurses to be ready for report. Get a face-to-face report from...

I graduated in NH (NHCTC Stratham) in May of 2005. Took my boards June 7th, 2005. Could have tested sooner but I wanted a few more days to study. It is do-able, IMHO. Andrea

Clearly I didn't read your first post very closely! Somehow I thought you had said she was moaning with care.... Your other post about not being able to auscultate heart sounds, along with the wet breathing would lead me more toward fluid overload.....

I'd rather suspect she is either in pain or anxious--anxiety may be r/t dyspnea. Is she on any morphine? I think she needs to be medicated!

I went to hospice directly from tele! Well, unless you want to count the 8 weeks of misery in outpatient oncology before I ran screaming to hospice (oh I loved onc--the patients, the work itself--it was the nastiness of the other staff I just couldn'...

I am going to respectfully disagree with that statement. Pain crises happen at all hours of the day and night. This is not a reflection on how well case managers are taking care of their patients. Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your post! Andre...

Can you ask to shadow for a shift before accepting the position? This would give you a better "feel" for the unit.....

I could not agree more with this post! It isn't that LTC nursing staff don't want to provide excellent end of life care...and obviously in many cases, they do. But given the LTC nurses' patient loads, and that the focus of hospice is really very dif...

Welcome to hospice! I've only been in this specialty for five months, but I can't imagine going back to tele/stepdown now, at least not full time (I'm still per diem at the hospital). I do home hospice, and the acuity even in the home can be unbeliev...

I am curious, is your hospice using computer documentation, and if so, what program are you using? do you like it? If you have done both paper and computer documentation in the hospice setting, which did you prefer and why?? This should be an interes...

Road Notes is what we'll be using! I asked the question because so many of the RNs in my hospice are sooooooooooo negative about the change over--and I am personally looking forward to it! I came to hospice from a hospital with a fully electronic med...

I agree with this response as well.....my hospice job is much more flexible and family friendly than my 12 hour shift work in the hospital setting.

I refuse to believe that hospice requires us to be "on" 24/7. In fact, in my hospice I am encouraged not to even think of checking my email on my day off, or on the weekend. I am salaried at 32 hours per week, and yes, there are some weeks that I wor...

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE my ultrascope. I'd never go back to Littmann...I hear so much better with my hot pink breast cancer scope!

We have a dedicated on-call team. I am currently obligated for one weekend of scheduled visits (8-430) per month, but our manager is in process of hiring weekend only nurses...which means my weekend obligation will be even less :)

That's tough. The main reason I chose nursing over another medical field I had been considering was that flexibility. I started out in telemetry, transferred briefly to oncology, and am now starting out in hospice. At some point, if I want to do tele...