What is your expected productivity and how is it measured

[slb53]

What is the expected nurse productivity at your agency ? How do they measure productivity ? I've been reading this forum and am interested in your answers. I work for an agency that is constantly complaining about the nurses not making productivity. We are computerized but still do a lot of paperwork. If I'm lucky I can get through an admission visit in an hour and then take another two hours to complete documentation. The acuity of the patient continues to rise. Hospitals discharge patients without making sure they understand discharge medications. Scripts aren't given or pharmacy isn't open. Referals have very little information and clients are often not homebound. The list goes on but suffice to say I waste a lot of time everyday doing things that don't contribute to productivity. Its very frustrating. I've been doing this for 7 years. I love the patient contact but am sick of the endless documentation and phone calls. They want to tie our raises to productivity but make it impossible to consistantly make productivity. It can't be that my coworkers and I are all too slow and dumb to be efficient.

[IndianaHH]

Indiana is facing the "productivity" quota also. In the agency I work for top brass continues to redefine what is productive and what isn't. So as I am charting per the new definitions, the rug is switched.

The brass complaints that the productivity isn't high enough, then on the other side of their mouths is the complaint that pt visits per episode are too high, pts need to have the visits streamlined, and pts discharged.

I work the weekends,plus oncall/plus phone triage and regular duties Monday/Tuesday. Supposedly 10 hr shifts. Never happens that way.

The agency doesn't take into consideration I am driving 60 miles one direction and while Im driving Im talking to the dr about a different patient... isn't that what a HH Nurse does? Multitask?

The agency is rather large...5 branchs...my branch used to have active census of 300... not now.. its dropped to about 100. All to government interference.

[CMH66]

I work at a HH/Hospice agency in PA, and am responsible for coordinating all nursing schedules(I am also a nurse and spent many years on the road), current census is aprox 160 patients. Productivity is difficult to control, there are so many variables involved. In general nurses will have 5-6 regular visits/8hr day. I will try to limit it to 4 visits if one of them is a SOC/Recert or Resume. I will also try to do the same if one of the visits is an OASIS discharge but this is not always possible depending on staffing and the amount of visits to be covered in a day. We do require that all regular visit notes be submitted daily and all OASIS be completed in 5 days. Our RNs each function as case managers, they plan the visits thru out the cert period and are basically responsible for overseeing all care for their patients(a full time RN typically manages aprox 20 patients) day to day visits are usually done by the managing nurse. Each nurse hands in a list of patients needing visits for the next day, I then adjust those schedules to even out the work load(try to keep patients with their primary nurses but not always possible) admissions, recert/resume are assigned based on location and/or who has the lightest case load. Our nurses don't do much clerical, a secretary makes up charts, files, etc. Nurses are responsible for ordering supples for their patients, making all patient related calls/faxes to physician offices. Supervisor does all insurance auths. We are in a moderately rural area, covering 5 counties so it is not unusual to driver over 50 miles per day. We use laptops for majority of documentation.

[Wishinonastar, BSN]

CMH yours is about the same as ours except the new charts must be completed that day unless the nurse is going to see the patient again the next day. I am also in PA- no hospice though. We struggle with overtime still.

On the bright side I had a HH job back in the late 80', and early 90's where I often drove 150 miles a day!

[dmdrn73]

Our Productivity requirement is 5/day, but on average we see 6 (5 plus an admit) or more. There have been days I have seen 8-9 (with one of those being an admit). They count a ROC almost the same as a SOC but a recert or an OASIS D/C is pretty much considered a regular visit. We do get a bonus if we are over productivity but it is tied into the productivity of ALL FT nurse/case managers. For example, they average out the visits for all of us and if the average is over 5/day (25/week) then the ones whose individual average is more than 6 or 7 get a bonus, I think it is $35/visit over. But even if someone's productivity is 8 or 9 and the average is not over 5 then that nurse gets nothing, which I don't think is fair because they usually don't take into consideration if someone had a paper day or other reasons for the low productivity.