IAKaren

Thanks everyone who responded to my post about our unit restructuring. I have some other questions regarding specifics. In an attempt to streamline, we need to get rid of some of our "busywork". If you could let me know how you manage the following: 1) are you required to document ekgs with hard copy strips? i.e. taping a strip to the record? 2) Do you push your own medications? 3) how extensive is your admission process? Does a physician's H & P satisfy any of your admission physical requirements or do you still need to do your own complete physical? 4) How are patient's current medications documented. Currently, we give a sheet to our patients to have filled out when they come in, but then we are required to recopy this ourselves, by hand, onto another sheet. 4) Does your unit do bronchoscopies? If so, how are they staffed? Do you do emergent bronchs? That's all I can think of right now. I really appreciate your help with our growing (or should I say shrinking) pains as we prepare to restructure our unit. Karen in Iowa

Yes, 3 RN's are alot. Originally, the third RN was a concession to the anesthesia department which requested that one nurse have no other responsibilities besides monitoring the patient leaving two to concentrate on the procedure and physician. I used to work in an OR and when we gave conscious sedation we also had this requirement. Right now, due to the computer charting, 3 people in the room comes in mighty handy. I like the idea of scanning the procedure record but I'm not sure our computer program is set up for that. I will find out. Thanks so much for your ideas.

Our GI unit is restructuring. We have had the luxury of having 3 RN's in our procedure rooms until now but our hospital administration has decided (due to some benchmarking) that we can scale back to two RN's per room. We know that most GI units do run this way but we are interested in hearing how other units manage the details of performing EGD's/Colonoscopies/Bronchoscopies with 2 RN's. Our main hurdle is a very cumbersome computer charting program and demanding physicians who insist on extremely rapid turnovers. We do approx 25 procedure per day. We have 3 procedure rooms, 2 prep rooms and 8 recovery bays. We have 2 techs to do scope processing. So...how do you manage specimens, what kind of documention are you required to do, how much prep time including paperwork is required, how long do you keep patients after procedures, how do you handle emergent add-ons with minimal staffing. The computer charting is a real time-waster. The program is designed more for supply tracking so there are many screens to navigate through to do our documentation. We have to chart everything on it including all the specimens, all the supplies, all the vital signs. Any ideas for streamlining procedures will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hi all. I'm new to this board and have learned alot from the forum already. I am posting a question on behalf of my other colleagues in our Endo Unit. We process our scopes using the Steris machine. We do anywhere from 20-30 endoscopies per day and have three machines so they do get a work out. It seems however like they are breaking down constantly and we often have at least one out of service for the day waiting for the Steris repairman. This occurs at least once a week. Then we end up doing some of them by hand or transporting them to the OR or central sterilizing and no one likes running dirty scopes around through the halls. Is anyone else that's using Steris machines having this kind of trouble? It's kind of frustrating and would appreciate everyone's thoughts. Thanks in advance for your help