writing progress notes

Glad to hear from an experience person. Having trouble writing good progress notes.

Your help would be greatly appreciated

Hi,

Not in school, employed as a LPN, content is writing a solid nursing progress note, and not sounding like a summary. Any suggestions?

Not clear what you're really asking. What's the matter with "a summary," anyway? Does that mean something that I don't understand?

Is this for a note for a shift, a monthly note (like for a SNF), or ... ?

One of the very best compliments I ever rec'd from a physician was that he loved my documentation because he could really see what the patient looked like by reading it (bless you, John Mehigan, vascular surgeon, wherever you are). That is what you are aiming for.

The best way to think about nursing documentation is to think first about what medical records are used for. Quick! How many things can you think of?

1) Communications between staffers and disciplines

2) Legal documentation of events, assessment, and care

3) Supporting billing and insurance reimbursement (and that becomes your paycheck)

4) Clinical research

5) Education

6) Quality improvement/risk management

Gold star if you can think of some more!

The point is that you have to keep a lot more in mind when you write your notes and document your meds. All of those folks will be reading them sometime and counting on you to be accurate and descriptive. If your nursing documentation class had that in mind, by all means, take it to heart and use it every day. If it didn't, consider a creative writing class that teaches you how to see beyond the obvious and how to use good English to describe it for the reader. I can tell you at least one excellent doc, a lot of bean counters, medical and nursing researchers and academics, and many lawyers and nurse legal consultants will appreciate that.

Thank you very much! Assessment, Nursing Process, Charting is great web site for nurse students and novice nurses!!!!