OutReach Memo from Kevin C.
Oct 25th
Week one of Outreach was completed with 23 cases opened for a total of 55 patient visits. This was enough of a workload to keep newly oriented team members busy. Thank you everyone for your enthusiasm and willingness to help this service step forward. Initial evaluations have come back with huge praises for your work.
I thought I would write to touch base on a couple of issues. At this point policy decisions are being made frequently, in response to the circumstances we have been encountering. This is to keep you all in the loop.
That's enough. I'm really excited about the program today, and it has nothing to do with fine-tuning the process. We made a big save last night. Cool.
Week one of Outreach was completed with 23 cases opened for a total of 55 patient visits. This was enough of a workload to keep newly oriented team members busy. Thank you everyone for your enthusiasm and willingness to help this service step forward. Initial evaluations have come back with huge praises for your work.
I thought I would write to touch base on a couple of issues. At this point policy decisions are being made frequently, in response to the circumstances we have been encountering. This is to keep you all in the loop.
- Outreach sees patients on 7A - D and 8A only. Other floors have unearthed the Outreach RN pager number, have asked for assistance and have received it. That's not going to work for everyone on our team and that will make this type of response unreliable. It may also make new team members feel like they're failing if they don't see these patients. I've gone to the CNLs on all the excluded wards and told them to use the old way of doing things: page the ICU CNL. If you go to these calls you go as an agent of the ICU CNL and not Outreach. Pages should be redirected to the ICU CNL to keep them in the loop, ‘cause you know these will be pre-codes more often than not.
- Document every visit, no matter how short. You are seen as a new, important hospital resource and I want to be able to show how in demand you are. I'm sure that we will see Sabeeha a hundred times and hardly do anything - but you are part of the reason she could go out.
- Really try to capture utilization times - yours and others. This isn't stopwatch stuff, just reasonable estimations. It's a big important measurement for me.
- We now have an internal and an external communication log. Internal comments are for Outreach group discussion. External comments are there for me to bring to the units we service. Outreach reps now meet weekly with the Chief Medical Resident, CNLs & OL from CTU. If you want a particularly troublesome incident discussed - write it here.
- Transfers out of ICU are automatic follow-ups. These cases can be closed went you feel they no longer need to be active. There was pressure to change this policy, but for now this is how it stands. See me for details if you need the long version of events.
That's enough. I'm really excited about the program today, and it has nothing to do with fine-tuning the process. We made a big save last night. Cool.