Time saving tips for HH nurse

Great habits!

I try to communicate with other team members as much as possible in the home too. We are electronic so I can report falls, change in condition and so forth via my iPad.

For labs I fill out my req sheet prior to the visit.

Can't think of anything else but would love to see others responses.

I interact with some of my patients via email to remind and confirm appointments etc. Some folks prefer that to a phone call and in my experience it is less time consuming.

How many patient visits do you currently have in a week?

right now I'm usually seeing somewhere between 6-7 pts a day, 5-6 if I have a SOC or something.

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sometimes I'll see up to 8/9 a day but thats only on occasion

Well, first "time saving tip" I could offer is Reduce Your Patient Load.

Are you in an Assisted Living Facility? 8/9 a day at times is taxing even when you are walking down the hall from one residence to another.

You need time savings if you want to complete visits for 8/9 patients within an 8 hour work day.

Are you one of those "salaried" HH RNs who get compensated for 40 hours while expected to work 50+ to get the work done?

I work in a couple assisted living facilities I don't miss the driving at all but it is often hard to work around set times, All mealtimes, naptime. when "Wheel of Fortune" is on

A big time saver for me is to set up lab bags inside the transport bag. One of each tube, a tourniquet. alcohol pads, vacutainer and I also have at least 2 needles. I tuck in a lab req and I just grab the bag. I put the tubes I know I wont use in another bag that I use when it is time to make more bags

I use mapquest route planner to try to minimize drive time. I also wrote a macro that fills out the computerized assessment form according to the last visit so that not only do I get a report of sorts going through the screens but I only have to change what is different. This saves me about 10 minutes a visit but took many hours to write, as it is over 5000 lines of code. I used autohotkey to write it. I'm payed by the visit per diem so it is in my best interest to be as efficient as possible. I just started doing start of cares (only been doing this about 6 months) and although with regular visits I usually have my documentation locked and complete with charging and notes and all, I'm going to experiment this week with using an oasis cheat sheet I made for SOC so I can reduce my time in the home since it seems there are so many steps that utilize the assessment info that it would be easier to see it all in one place for reference rather than coming in and out of the screens in our program (McKesson). I've got all the info and steps I need with checkboxes for tasks completed or things documented on one half of a sheet of paper with fall risk assessment and Braden on the back. And even though it was a pain the first time, I think a macro that prefills the oasis for what a healthy patient would look like so I don't have to waste time filling millions of wdl boxes and can chart by exception will save boatloads of time. I also make the lab draw kits like the previous poster. I like to write an order draft and note draft the night before so I can just add or take away as needed according to assessment and I outline the teaching in my note that I'd like to do so it functions as a to do list of things to discuss with the patient. This also allows me to call the md pretty close to the end of my visit to give for a verbal ok on my order to give them the max amount of time to call me back so I'm not waiting on calls into the next day when I'm not working. I'd love to hear other peoples tricks!