hospicenurse

I'm trying to locate a video I saw years ago. I believe it was used for training our hospice volunteers, but I'm not sure it was developed for that purpose. It was basically a one man routine. He talked about what noverbal dying people would say i...

Go to the nurse manager, explain the situation. Is this LPN new to hospice? Perhaps some teaching is needed for the nurse, and perhaps the whole team. This would be an excellent opportunity for the team to learn more or get a refresher about tream...

Look into Delaware Hospice - they are nonprofit and have an excellent reputation. hn

The hospice I work for has it's own DME and they say they must have an 02 sat below 90 before they can provide 02. There is nothing in the regs that says this, so I suspect it is either a leftover mindset from when this company had a homecare dept.,...

Lisa, You got 5k more than their original offer - that's great! I've never done 7days on and 7 days off - it sounds like a great gig - at least every other week :-) It may turn out fine - every organization is different. I think that the oncall a...

I have worked for two different hospices who had a FT oncall RN - both positions were Fri 4:30p to Monday 8am and that is it. Both positions required the nurse to do admits if needed - and it is always needed. I think you are right to be concerned ...

I agree that the hospice charting is probably a little less than homecare - I've worked both. Some things I would ask about this position are what is the geographical area you would be responsible for? What is the average daily census? How many ca...

I haven't taken micro, but I am currently taking Pathophysiology online at St. Pete and I am going to drop it after two weeks in. The course work is unbelievable - I'm spending 20 hrs/week and not even getting halfway through the work. With 2 addit...

I can't tell you how many times over the years patients have asked me for a depository. Kinda makes sense when you think about it, I do deposit something in there.... and every time they ask for the hospic nurse I envision myself in a jello mold (l...

You are so right. I learned this lesson from a patient whose daughters kept insisting that we couldn't tell her her dx or px, and that she would not want to know. They wouldn't let me in to her room until we came to an agreement about it. I finall...

Respite by Medicare regs can only be up to 5 days - no more. However, they could, if they chose, switch him back to the regular homecare rate for the remaining three days. It's not much difference in reimbursement, but the inpt unit would probably...

Welcome to the world of homecare/hospice! You will find this behavior in varying degrees just about anywhere you go. As everyone else has told you - set your boundaries. And then stick to them. I would tell them that I don't intend to answer my p...

just a followup - I finally found someone in my old office who remembered this video and located it. It is wonderful and I highly recommend the video and/or seeing his live show if you ever have the opportunity. His name is Lester Thomas Shane. Th...

Our 16 bed inpatient unit provides meals to families for $4. We seldom get more than a couple of extra meals/wk to make - so it does not overburden our kitchen staff. We also have a dining area with tea, coffee, hot chocolate available at no cost. ...

Tweety - I am thinking about spc online - is there a lot of clinical and can it be done in my area? (I'm actually about 2 hours north of Tampa and could go there if I really had to... $78 credit hour is just too good to pass up since my employer has...

I agree that there is probably some guilt about not visiting when she needed them. And family dynamics are so complex - you often never know all the little things that make families seem dysfunctional in their grief. They may have had other recent ...

Hi all- Here in NJ we have residential facilities (not SNF's) where clients have their own apartments but have communal meals and a nurse who manages meds. The nurses are not there 24 hours, there are aides at night and a nurse on call. Besides t...

You do have a difficult task. I've never worked inpatient hospice so I don't have that experience to share, but my suggestion is to find a way to empower the NA's, who arguably are some of the most unrewarded, unappreciated of health care workers. ...

I may not have understood the questions either. On rereading it seems it's more about how the nurses cope, and my responses are more about what I do for families, not for myself. On a personal level I always thought I had no need to follow up with 9...

Recently our director has told us we will not cover feedings under any circumstances. Apparently this is something that she picked up from other agencies' policies. In the past we have covered it for certain patients, for example cancer of esophagu...

At my hospice we are given the freedom to attend the funeral if we wish. I find that there are select patient's whose funerals I want to attend - usually those who I feel especially close to. Also, we often make a followup bereavement visit to fami...

It would be helpful to have a little more info about this situation. Is he at home? Hospital? Is he on hospice? In general, you should get him Roxanol for air hunger/pain and an order to use as much as it takes to make him comfortable. You can b...

I just spent a week training to implement MYSIS in our HHC/Hospice agency. Unfortunately, our corp. will not be using point of care- they won't invest in laptops. Used Pathways in the past on laptop and liked it (the corp who bought us actually tra...

Thanks Txrn1966! Most of these things I try to do, but, as Lowell George of Little Feat said, it's so easy to slip! I keep a weekly grid sheet on a clipboard, it gets penciled in each Monday morning with all the team members' visits and stays in t...

I am one month away from moving to Florida and my new job. I haven't done FT case mgt for a while and I'm trying to get myself organized now before the chaos of the move. I will be expected to manage a caseload of 12-14 patients in a rural area whe...