MN newbie

I work in long term care and we do try to keep in mind this is their home. Most people do not check their blood pressure daily, especially if they are stable. When one of our residents are ill we do start monitoring their vitals every shift and more often PRN. We have minimized our blood glucose checks for most of our residents to once daily, though that increases PRN for illness or if they become symptomatic. Our residents don't wear name tags and are very involved in their care. i agree that seems overboard for LTC. Perhaps your staff can start asking how often they were checking vitals at home. in assisted living we only checked vitals once monthly and PRN. That is still more frequently than a lot of ppl who only get them checked at the MD office every few months.

After just reading a great book, 5 Days at Memorial: Five Days at Memorial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia has me wondering and worried about our disaster protocols and what it would be like to work during an emergency, especially such a catastrophe.

Is it all the residents or could it be a few that could be combative with cares? Do the aides have enough time for lotioning every foot? You seem like you do a great job running your facility, but the statement sounds pretty broad when there can be a lot of reasons why someone doesn't get their lotion. Could lotioning be scheduled before afternoon naps when the staff might not be as busy as they are in the morning before breakfast? just a few thoughts.

I used the Kaplan and it helped me to be more confident in taking the NCLEX but I wished I had followed my gut and taken the test within a week of graduation. I lost almost 2 months which I could have been job hunting and/or working, not to mention was too stressed to enjoy the holidays with my family and spent tons of hours studying when I probably could have passed it right away. if you have the time and money, it was a great class, especially the testing strategies but you just spent the last 2-4 years learning how to be a nurse, and Kaplan only focuses on the test.

Check with your pharmacy, we can only put 72 hrs worth of meds in envelopes. If more we contact the pharmacy and they package up the correct amount of meds to send in bottles etc. Also check with the billing office. If they are covered under Medicare A they can't be gone that long, if under Medical Assistance, they would also lose eligibility. The reasoning is if they are well enough to be gone for that long, they don't need the assistance. Other places also have limitations on how long they can be gone. Families don't always know those regulations,

1. Feb 09-2009 2. once 2 months after graduation. 3. Kaplan course, Kaplan med cards, Saunders book and CD 4. Followed Kaplan pre-test schedule and supplemented with Saunders and med cards everywhere around the house I kept a study book so I could always pick something up and study for a while. 5. Yes, I am glad I took it but probably didn't need to. 6. Always having study materials around to look at.

I think part of the problem is a lot of the part-time nurses are bumping up their hours to full-time. I talked to a HR rep for Allina and he stated that everytime he posted a position he had it filled by internal applicants.

I am a new grad RN who started my first job in LTC. We played "Call light poker" last night. Any aide who answered another person's call light recieved a playing card. The person with the best poker hand at the end of the shift won a candy bar. It was kind of hokey but we had a lot of fun with it. Does anyone have any other ideas to improve teamwork?