Skills/Competencies

Yep - struggling with exact same issues. This task alone could take up 50% of my time. No idea how to work compliance into the mix in any efficient manner, so I'll follow along and hope someone comes along with the idea of the month!

My building is very large and the company is pushing all sorts of clinical programs.

I have mandatories to do to satisfy the DPH and the company. It's very difficult to get anyone to come to an inservice even if it is mandatory.

Skills fairs are ok but really? A teddy bear? I told my administrator I was very willing to teach almost anything but I need the tools. He's letting me order a training manikin...can't tell you how excited I am (pathetic I know). If we are expected to do teaching and training to up the clinical skills of the nurses which will up the revenue, then they need to give us the tools we need.

If there were ever a problem, and an investigation at your facility about nurses maintaining competencies, I doubt the teddy bear would pass.

The fact that this sort of thing goes on in 2018 floors me.

I just found out I have a small budget for staff development and posted a question in the Geriatric forum.

A manikin would be awesome, but a quick search showed they are around $2,000 on up?

I'm struggling to get ours done too. We are super short staffed and in an actual crisis right now.

I've been trying to pick skills that are used daily and follow staff into a room and evaluate right then and there. Pericare, repositioning in bed, transferring residents from bed to chair, dressing a dependant resident, oral care, urinal care. Some can be done all together.

We've never had skills fair. I was planning on doing one mid-month.

Does anyone have a program to keep track or a basic list of what your are doing?

I use an excel spread sheet. All the inservices I give are on it and when someone completes it, I mark the date on the form. My predecessor kept huge binders with everything in them....too low tech for me and too darn heavy!

@CapeCodMermaid I would love to pick your brain! I'm on CC too. I just accepted the role of SDC/infectious disease and I don't know where to begin, this is my first time in a role of this capacity and I'm at a complete loss. I started on Monday and was literally given the keys to the office and told good luck- the DON was with me about 15 minutes in total. I previously worked as a staff nurse and then Supervisor at the facility- so they are well aware of my background and lack of experience in this role. Are there any good websites that I should know about for resources? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

I was the nurse educator for a small facility. I did skills check offs for CNAs out on the floor, but I gave myself a month to get to everyone. I flexed my hours to see all shifts. I observed them work on real residents.

For licensed staff, I did the same, but I concentrated on tasks that they had to do pretty much every day - wound care, G tube care, trach care, med pass.

The only time I used a dummy was for code blue training, and we really didn't do anything to the dummy (it was not a CPR class).

Skills fairs weren't an option because that would involve staff coming in on their days off and accruing OT.

Does anyone have a great website for these?