The Importance Of Orientation In Home Care
I currently work in home care and find it to be a bit challenging at times for reason that you are always on your own but overall it’s a great experience and I really enjoy it . I entered into this position knowing that it would be a challenge but didn’t realize how challenging it can really be.
Something I would like to change about my job is the orientation period since there really isn’t one given to the new hires. Since most of the new hires are recent graduates this can be very challenging to these nurses. Often these nurses are thrown into a complex case with only basic nursing knowledge and are expected to learn quickly and figure everything out on their own. Although the agency is always just a phone call away it is still very difficult when you need someone to assist you with something in person but they are unable to help since they are often far away. Another problem is all the paperwork involved. Since there is no orientation there is no training about how to fill out the paperwork. This can be a big problem since there is a ton of paperwork involved needing to be correctly filled out. This can cause the nurse to feel overwhelmed trying to complete the endless paperwork while trying to care for an ill patient who needs constant care. …show more content…
My plan for improvement would be to hold a mandatory orientation for at least a week.
This orientation would include a day of training the RN in the proper documentation of all involved paperwork. A day learning emergency equipment and emergency procedures (since most of the clients are considered critical). A couple of days should be spent shadowing several more experienced nurses in order to view their daily activities and methods and lastly several hours should be spent meeting with the client and their family to make sure that both the nurse and the patient are a good fit for one
another.
To gather data I would interview and survey the new hires to find out if they felt prepared or underprepared to work on their own. Those who felt they were unprepared I would ask them what would make them feel more prepared and confident. After learning what would be most helpful to them I would try to have the agency implement those ideas. To implement this change I would suggest to the agency to give an orientation to the next group of RNs they hire and assess the results of both the orientated RNs against the previously hired RNs to see if there is a difference between the two. To assess if there was a change I would give the orientated nurses the same interview and survey that I had already given to the nurses hired prior to them and compare the two sets of findings to see if there was a positive change due to having an orientation.
Something I would like to change about my job is the orientation period since there really isn’t one given to the new hires. Since most of the new hires are recent graduates this can be very challenging to these nurses. Often these nurses are thrown into a complex case with only basic nursing knowledge and are expected to learn quickly and figure everything out on their own. Although the agency is always just a phone call away it is still very difficult when you need someone to assist you with something in person but they are unable to help since they are often far away. Another problem is all the paperwork involved. Since there is no orientation there is no training about how to fill out the paperwork. This can be a big problem since there is a ton of paperwork involved needing to be correctly filled out. This can cause the nurse to feel overwhelmed trying to complete the endless paperwork while trying to care for an ill patient who needs constant care. …show more content…
My plan for improvement would be to hold a mandatory orientation for at least a week.
This orientation would include a day of training the RN in the proper documentation of all involved paperwork. A day learning emergency equipment and emergency procedures (since most of the clients are considered critical). A couple of days should be spent shadowing several more experienced nurses in order to view their daily activities and methods and lastly several hours should be spent meeting with the client and their family to make sure that both the nurse and the patient are a good fit for one
another.
To gather data I would interview and survey the new hires to find out if they felt prepared or underprepared to work on their own. Those who felt they were unprepared I would ask them what would make them feel more prepared and confident. After learning what would be most helpful to them I would try to have the agency implement those ideas. To implement this change I would suggest to the agency to give an orientation to the next group of RNs they hire and assess the results of both the orientated RNs against the previously hired RNs to see if there is a difference between the two. To assess if there was a change I would give the orientated nurses the same interview and survey that I had already given to the nurses hired prior to them and compare the two sets of findings to see if there was a positive change due to having an orientation.