Tutorial for Nurse Managers

Let’s face it, the job of a Nurse Manager is super stressful. You juggle staffing, bed control, patient complaints, personnel issues, staying on budget, the ever-popular Initiative-of-the-Month, you're in back-to-back meetings and wonder when you will get around to your to-do list. You have a few staff who take up the majority of your time -- they complain or are disorganized, put in overtime, or omit important patient care tasks. Here is how the NurseMind app can help you and your staff get back on track.

NurseMind is a mobile application you download onto your iPod or iPhone. It works with or without internet connectivity. With a few clicks at the beginning of a shift, your nurses can be on their way to a more organized and productive shift. At the start of the shift, the nurse chooses the type of shift that he/she is starting and enters a few key facts about each of her patients:  initials, room number, main goal for the patient on this shift, and key issues such as wound or diabetic. Using the built-in Shift Definitions (task lists) that we have created for different types of nursing units (Med/Surg, SNF, Rehab, Ortho, Mom/Baby, Operative, etc.) the app automatically creates an organized time line of the work flow for the nurse. These lists are customizable by going onto the website, where you and your nursing staff can add or delete tasks or create your own checklists. The value of NurseMind to you and your team grows as you fine-tune your shift definition for the way your unit works.

As your nurses work through their shift, they can use the app as they walk the hallway, to quickly see what is due, what is late, how many timed tasks they have remaining in their shift and how much time they have left in their shift.

Do you have a nurse who constantly goes back to the supply room, or makes multiple trips to the same patient's room to complete tasks? With NurseMind, as she is in the supply room, she can quickly scan to see what other supplies she needs, saving precious minutes by getting them all in one trip.

Have you received physician or nursing complaints about disorganized or unprepared reports to the doctor or to other nurses? NurseMind's SBAR feature guides the nurse through the report to the doctor and the nurse change of shift report using the industry standard and The Joint Commission (TJC) approved SBAR reporting model (Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation).

Do you have less than stellar critical results reporting stats? Do you have staff who forget to follow up on important deadlines or are late in providing patient care? NurseMind's Remind Me feature helps the nurse remember when they page a doctor, are expecting results, or need other important reminders.

Is missed meals or no breaks penalty pay and overtime making your budget bulge and your boss crazy? Do you have nurses who leave all their documentation to the end of the shift? NurseMind tracks the remaining number of minutes of tasks yet to be done and the number of minutes left in the shift. At any time, at a glance, the nurse can see when she is behind, which overdue or yet-to-do tasks can be assigned to others, and when she needs help to get back on track. The Shift at a Glance feature allows the nurse to see when she has open blocks of time that she can use to catch up on documentation, take a break, have lunch or help a team-mate to catch up.

Are you seeing high turnover of nursing staff or below-average employee satisfaction? NurseMind can help you to help your nurses manage their time better, feel good about the great work they do, and improve your ability to provide support and resources more effectively.

Collecting all this work-in-progress data gives you information you have never had before. NurseMind captures completed tasks, reminders, and shifts, stores them on the server, and summarizes them for you in aggregated reports. These reports can be customized to monitor staff performance or unit quality measures. Individual nurses have the ability to track their shift performance, run reports based on type of treatments (e.g. completed 150 IV starts in past 12 months) and can use the reports for resume-building, performance self-assessments, and performance improvement planning. The data gathered in these reports can also be used for unit nursing research projects.

It supports nurses in providing top-quality care, and you in being an effective and efficient manager.  Feeling a little less stressed now?