Five Steps to Improved Documentation

Paperwork is part of the job. Next to patient care, it is the most important part of your job. Wouldn’t it be nice to see your patients and document well in time to don your pearls and cook dinner for your family? Or maybe you just want a cocktail or two while you watch the evening news. Pretty much nobody wants to stay up until midnight documenting so that they can be paid on time.

1. Turn off the Cut and Paste function. There are some clinicians who should have a neon sign on their forehead reading, ‘I document. Therefore I clone.’ Turn it off. If you survived nursing school or have an advanced degree in therapy, it stands to reason that you can compose an original note without copying the prior note.
2. Write plans of care that address the patient’s issues. No more. No less. If there are two or three pages of orders, the important stuff will be buried in the minutia.
3. Read the care plan. That sounds obvious but nurses cannot read care plans if they aren’t present and in the chart. This should be a priority and nurses should refuse to see the patient if they do not have one. At the very least, a verbal report from the admitting or recertifying nurse should be given and documented. It is easy to lower the bar on this but very difficult to raise it. But we are nurses. We do difficult things and we need care plans.
4. Payment is often in the details. If you are not in a position to document in the house, keep a pocket sized notebook with you and write vitals and what was taught.
   1. Weights
   2. Blood pressures
   3. Pain
   4. Heart rate
   5. MD visits
   6. Medications
   7. MD and hospital documentation
5. Teach only useful information that your patient can understand. The internet has no shortage of teaching guides available from the web. Look for teaching guides that have been published by reputable organizations such as the American Diabetes Association, the CDC, the National Institute of Health and University hospitals. That way, if the information is bad, you can at least credit a reputable source. Upload this information into the computer in the patient’s electronic record. Then you can chart, ‘reviewed pages 1 – 4 of DM teaching guide and taught page 5’. And remember that teaching guides should vary according to the patient’s needs.
6. Complete a short pre-visit checklist the day before your visit that includes calling your patient to confirm the visit, ensuring that appropriate teaching guides are uploaded and available in printed format for the patient, determining if there are additional orders since your last visit and read any documentation that another clinician submitted. This will ensure that you are able to give the best care possible to your patient.

Although going through these steps may seem like more work, it isn’t. Consider driving 15 miles to a patient’s home only to discover they had an MD appointment. If you are unprepared for teaching, you may waste your time and the patient’s. Reconstructing notes and trying to remember vital signs is a task that is slightly less pleasant than a root canal and takes time. Doing the job right the first time saves so many headaches that the manufacturer of Advil would be in jeopardy if everybody bought into the concept

Perhaps the greatest delay in documentation is finding better things to do. It requires discipline to complete quality paperwork within 24 hours of a visit. It is a habit you need if you are to be in home health longer than a week.  Believe it or not, there is an app for that. Actually, there are fifteen apps for that. Try one. Because although clean documentation that doesn’t boomerang back to you and is submitted on time gets the agency paid, the effect on your life will be even more amazing.