Tips for getting faster at admissions? Please share them

[Dunkingirl]

Stereotypical nervous new grad nurse here who has to 1) double check everything as I'm charting and 2) write down everything so I can remember to pass it on during report. I work on a tele floor in a hospital and HATE getting admits, and bonus points, I always get them at shift change. I feel like I'm so slow charting the admission assessment. Right now, I'll bring my rover in with me to greet the pt and ask the pt the admission questions and chart them as I'm in there. I'm wondering if my way sucks, though, because other nurses I know are done with their admissions in 30min, where it takes me an hour sometimes. Any tips on getting faster at them? Should I memorize the admission questions (we have maybe 30-40 in a head to toe fashion). And then I always worry that I'm missing a skin issue and keep double checking different areas. What am I doing wrong? How can I make this process smoother?

[Meeshie]

Practice makes perfect. The more of them you do the smoother it will start to go.

[smf0903]

Meeshie took the words right out my mouth: practice makes perfect. I want to also add, I've gotten pretty quick with admissions and I love doing them because I get a ton of info (usually). I hated doing admissions when I first started because I was so slow with them and other nurses whizzed through them. BUT, I have had plenty of instances when I had to look back at an admission in the chart on my patient (and admission done by someone else) and holy cow, so much stuff they don't even ask!! We have required fields that need to be filled out on admission in the chart and a lot...and I mean A LOT of nurses simply fill out the mandatory fields and that's it.

You'll get there! You'll find your own groove and before you know it you'll be wondering what you ever thought was so difficult about them :)