weekends

[nurtch04]

I am the weekend nurse for the agency I work for. I was curious as to how other agencies handle the weekends. At first I was getting 7.75-9.0 points, now I am getting 10.25-13 points not counting drive time. Today is Sunday and I have 3 SOC's, luckily I have a husband and wife in the same home to admit. The houses will be about an hour drive apart.

Friday I had 1 SOC, and 6 visits. Saturday I had 1 SOC, 2 ROC and 3 visits, and the dreaded 3 SOC today. I also am on call from Friday at 5pm to Mon 8am so I have to pick up any prn visits and all of the other beeper calls such as referrals, "what time is my aide coming next Tues" etc.... If you have ever done on call you know what type of calls you get.

I really enjoy the weekends but I am only human I am just too tired to finish up paperwork when I have been on the road from 8am to 7pm sometimes later. After doing so many SOC in a row I find myself getting pts confused in my head. I believe they are putting most of the oasis work on me because we have one nurse that they won't allow to do any oasis work because of the number of late locks this nurse has had. I really don't mind working weekends, I know most ROC are done on weekends because thats when the hospitals turn them loose but I feel like weekends could be better organized or something. I am new to home health, I started in November after working critical care for 5 years. Maybe that is the problem. I have no problem with time management and my productivity is 85-90%.

I would just like some suggestions as to how other agencies work the

weekends. I thank you in advance for any suggestions.

[barefootlady, ADN, RN]

I keep hearing from several of the HH nurses I know the agencies are dumping more and more on weekends. I would think they can surely see you are more than meeting the point requirements. I don't really have an answer for you except maybe you need another person to share some of the duties that are being dumped on weekends. Personally I always referred the beeper calls about aides to the office on Monday morning, I did not have a way to reference what schedule had been set up for the aides, so I finally asked the answering service to attempt to screen some of the calls to more approiate needs on the weekends. Helped me a lot.

[bpowers]

I worked in critical care for 6 years and went to home care because it was my first love as a CNA through nursing school.....I work the weekends and have 7-9 points and work approx 7a-7p or 8a-8p (usually start later on Sundays because most people aren't up too early). I left the hospital full-time and just work PRN there now maybe once every two weeks. I was actually feeling bored and like everything was so routine. Homecare has such diversity.....I see and do so much and everyday is so different. I feel that my time management skills/organization has helped me in home care. The worst assignment I've had this first year as the weekend nurse was four SOC in one day. I understand how you can get your patient's really confused because three of my four SOB where hip replacements. I've found that if I take a lot of notes during my assessment that I can reference those notes during charting later and it's easier to recall the patient. If the patient has some type of rememerable trait or something like that. I've found it helps also to start working on your care plan and visit schedule and talk it through with your patient and write it down so you don't have to think of what you want to plan for this patient at the end of the night......I just love the weekends and am thankful that they haven't overloaded me too much. We have other people who work PRN and fill in the gaps when the weekend is too hectic. My biggest complaint so far is about some nurses coming in over the weekend and taking our protime machine that was left there for my use. .....that's happened twice now and I've spoke to my manager about it, but she just said she'd look into it.

The best thing for me has been that since I started working the weekends I'm making so much more money and working less hours. The weekend program has incentives for alot of nurses in Illinois. I feel really lucky and I love my job except for the heavy travel weekends. Our administrative clerk does a pretty good job keeping me in one area/county. But there has been days when I've driven over 200 miles.........what's the worst mileage/travel day you guys have had?

[renerian, BSN, RN]

Yes I have seen more referrals come in late Friday as hospitals and SNFs dump their clients out before the weekend. I have done up to 4 admissions/OASIS on a Saturday and Sunday and it truely stinks.

renerian