A work diary is a list of the shifts you've worked, including durations, locations, patient counts, and task counts. For example, you can see how many times you've given meds, done wound care, inserted NG tubes, etc.
Why do you need it? Your work diary is documentation of your work experience. It confirms the accuracy of timeclock reports and paycheck stubs, and produces statistics about the patient populations you've served, e.g. what percentage is diabetic. We are fascinated by our nursing careers and presume you are, too. This gives us real numbers to describe them.
It also supports you with real data when you're updating your resume and when it's time for your performance review. For example, you can tell your supervisor things like, "Last year I put in 100 NG tubes... I'm good at it," and "I have had 300 stroke patients."
Here are the work diaries you can generate:
- Shifts worked, detail -- every shift worked, with date, hours, unit, hospital/city, patient count, task count, and total of hours with subtotals by hospital.
- Shifts worked, summary -- total number of shifts and hours worked at each hospital.
- Tasks -- list of unique tasks done, with counts.
- Protocols -- list of unique protocols done, with counts.
- Precautions -- list of unique precautions taken for your patients, with counts.