Tips to shorten visits?

[NurseVal93]

Hello all,

Do any of you seasoned nurse's have any tips and advice to shorten student's visits to my office? I am new to school nursing, anything would be helpful. I find my average time for a student to be in here is around 35 minutes! I believe my average time to be about double from what I've seen on here, looking for ways to improve and expedite the process.

Thank you.

[JenTheSchoolRN, BSN, RN]

Something that our high school nurses have done is get some digital timers and for each student that is going to rest for 10 minutes, they set a timer and put it on top of the student's pass on the desk. That way when there are lots of students coming in, no one loses track of time and has a student there for 20+ minutes.

My tagline was always "OK, Kiddo. It's been 10 minutes with no fever and no vomiting, time to head back to class"

THIS. I've set timer on my phone as a reminder.

I also use therapeutic boredom. A lot. And once I've signed a pass with a time, I don't change it if a student is trying to linger. And I remind them I'm not changing it. I'm a bit mean, I suppose, but that has worked very well with my MS and HS students. As has sarcasm. My average visit time is 3-4 minutes. I can get backed up in my queue, but than I'll switch to triage mode and get three kids' complaints, for example, at the same time. I can weed out the quick visits (like cramps, for example) quickly.

(Side note: Fatigue is huge with a lot of my high school kids - they never get enough sleep. I'm not above giving them a 10 minute brain break if needed every once in a while - maybe I'm not totally mean - but I do look at student schedules and structure it during a study hall period. And set the timer.)

[Amethya]

While some said no coddling, I do engage with my students and have really good relationships with them. I do talk to them, but I also keep an eye on how long they are in my office. I try not to keep them in my office longer than 15 mins, unless they are sick and going home.

[tining, BSN, RN]

Stomach aches used to be my bad, now I auscultate AND palpate - No abnormal bowel sounds, abdomen soft non-tender - student can't argue with that. "I pushed on your stomach and your face did not change . . ." Plus the temp, did you eat/poop.

Still complaining? "Are you worried or upset about something? - that is a stomach ache that feels bad but until you stop worrying we cannot do anything about it."

NEVER ask if "do you feel better" - instead, "you have rested comfortably and it is now time to go back."

Explanations are key with that age as well. I used to tell my son - do this, don't do that without an explanation = attitude. Same situation with explanations = Oh, OK. I do my check and explain, this is what could be bad, but your symptoms are not those symptoms - oh, OK.