Time frame for documentation of safety checks

When I worked inpatient 10 years ago, one person was assigned to checks and that is all they did. maybe they could answer the door, but maybe not.. but no patient care. to see if it is doable, time it. can you get to all the patients in the 15 minutes. and other safety things you have to check. your managers have to show you how to make it doable...if not doable, then assign two people to checks...and yes you should fill it out right away. that is your assignment for that hour.

When I worked inpatient 10 years ago one person was assigned to checks and that is all they did. maybe they could answer the door, but maybe not.. but no patient care. to see if it is doable, time it. can you get to all the patients in the 15 minutes. and other safety things you have to check. your managers have to show you how to make it doable...if not doable, then assign two people to checks...and yes you should fill it out right away. that is your assignment for that hour.[/quote']

I work on a 16 bed C&A unit and we do ours the same way. We alternate who is assigned to the "q15 checks" every hour. That person is responsible for making sure they visibly see and check on every patient every 15 minutes and document it immediately. Realistically, it does get busy and sometimes it's longer than 15 mins, but we make every effort to be on time. We've had instances where management has taken these documents and used them to look into incidents on the unit.

We also do the checks as previous posters state. One person responsible for rounds w/clipboard that has every pt on list and we document the appropriate behaviors with a corresponding letter from a key on the bottom of the page.

Thanks so much for the input. At this time they are expecting one tech per unit to do checks and all the pt. care including groups.

I'm on a 50 bed unit with 3 hallways. We have one tech assigned to each hallway who is responsible for doing the 15 min checks as well as vital signs, assisting patients with hygeine, therapeutic communication, helping with admits and discharges and running groups. They do hand off their boards when running a group. We nurses assist when we can. The expectation is however that they are done on time and just as you describe, if late, it's falsification and must be left blank. Currently when a check is missed, employees are placed on automatic final disciplinary status for 12 months. We have had employees fired if they missed more than one in that 12 month period. Safety is absolutely critical but I think some common sense that patient care needs and emergencies don't run on an every 15 min schedule is needed.