Brianna Lutz on How to Improve Nurse Responsiveness on an Inpatient Oncology Unit
Brianna Lutz, MSN, RN, OCN, discusses a red-and-green dot hourly column that shows which patients with cancer have been attended to in the past hour.
Brianna Lutz, MSN, RN, OCN, Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven, discusses a flowchart built within EPIC that allows nurses on an oncology unit to view the workflow across the unit and better identify which patients require attention via targeted rounding.
Lutz recently presented on the topic at the 47th Annual Oncology Nursing Society Congress. In an interview with Oncology Nursing News®, she explains how her team developed and rolled out the system, and how it improves workflow across the unit.
Lutz and her team collaborated to identify a series of data points that already exist within the nurse’s workflow, such as vital signs, pain assessment intake/output, fall risk interventions, activity, ambulation, hygiene, positioning and Medical Administration Record documentation. Every time a nurse documents one of these items, their patient’s dot automatically turns green within the system; signaling to colleagues that this patient has been attended to within the past hour. If a patient has a red dot, then this signals that he or she has not been checked on within the hour and a nurse, or personal care assistant, should make a targeted round to care for that patient.
