Report to oncoming nurse

TazziRN, RN · Sep 18, 2006

*shudder* Mine was purely incompetence. I came on in the ER, was assigned to the cardiac room, took report from a cross-training nurse who supposedly had tele experience. She told me the pt was there because he just didn't feel well, was tachy, and had been there about an hour, had not been seen by the MD yet. EKG was done, O2 applied, that was it. I took report on my other pts and then went in to introduce myself. My eyes went up to the monitor and I flew out of that room, yelling for the doc. At the same time my charge was at the tele monitor calling "I see it!" The pt was in SVT at a rate of almost 300, had been like that the whole time, and the nurse had no idea why we were jumping all over him. Gave him adenosine, good outcome, the nurse was no longer invited back to the ER.

CritterLover, BSN, RN · Sep 18, 2006

i find "bad reports" tend to be ones of omission......someone left something critical out of report.

the patient is going to surgery in the a few hours.....and there isn't a consent on the chart.....you discover this when they call for the patient or when doing your chart check, whichever comes first.

critical labs haven't been addressed.

mandatory paperwork hasn't been done...and you wern't told.

stat/now meds that haven't been given.

mostly, i think they either signal a really bad, hectic day on the part of the off-going nurse, or they signal an off-going nurse that is completely clueless about what is important.

Antikigirl, ASN, RN · Sep 18, 2006

I keep it simple!

Name of pt

Age

Dx

Doc

apparatus in use (all tubes, wires, etc)

tests/labs/ an other tx (pending or of odd value)

General day story if anything odd happened, if not we chart by exception so it is there in the chart!

Simple, to the point, so they can move on and take care of the pt!