OASIS-C To Do List

Here are five things that every agency should squeeze into their schedule during this short work week:

1. Make sure that your OASIS-C assessments are ready to go. If you are relying on paper forms, ensure that they are in your agency. If they have been ordered but have not arrived, place a call to your vendor to make sure the order is being processed timely. If you use electronic documentation, ensure that your assessment component is up to date. Clarify any questions with your vendor.
2. Gather up all old forms and prepare to destroy them the first week of January. I promise you this is a good idea.
3. If you haven’t already done so, put your referring physicians on notice that due to a change in our dataset, our need for two way communication has increased dramatically. Explain that these changes are industry wide and not simply because your agency is needy.
4. Put in process a place for ongoing monitoring of weights and edema for failure patients, pain monitoring.
5. Review, one last time, with your nurses the medication profile review processes and all the related definitions.

Yes, you will likely be short staffed this week. Patients, especially heart failure and diabetics might still be reeling from holiday festivities, depressed patients are likely to exacerbate and yet, come midnight on Thursday, we will fall in line with the new dataset or fall out with major complications.

If you have any other helpful tips for readers, please, please post below. There is no such thing as being overly prepared when it comes to OASIS-C. In fact, there are days when I will settle for marginally prepared.