Tip of the Month: Save time with 'admission folder'
Save time with 'admission folder'
Searching for various forms needed for patients being admitted from the ED was a constant frustration for nurses at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. To solve this problem, the ED nurses created an "admission folder" with everything needed to complete an admission, such as a list of the patient's property and allergy bracelets.
"Before the folder, nurses had to look in a dozen different places for all the required paperwork. How frustrating!" says Mary J. Ross, RN, BSN, CEN, an ED charge nurse.
Members of the ED nursing staff love them, she says. "It has made a tremendous difference and was such an easy and quick fix."
An admission checklist also is included in the folder, used by nurses as a guideline for doing admissions. (See the ED's checklist, below.) Nurses often were aggravated searching for forms for conscious sedation, surgery consents, suicide precautions, alcohol withdrawal, and restraint, so they decided to put them all in a single file cabinet for "one-stop shopping," says Ross. "So often we are required to keep this record and that record. The list goes on and on. It was impossible to keep these forms stocked."
The cabinet holds "every and any" form an ED nurse may need, says Ross. "Now there is one place the nurse goes to retrieve a form," she says. "This cabinet has also been a real time and leg saver."
Searching for various forms needed for patients being admitted from the ED was a constant frustration for nurses at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.Subscribe Now for Access
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