Home Health & Hospice Week

Don't hem yourself into a 24-hour turn-around. Cleaning up inconsistencies between OASIS start of care assessments and therapy documentation isn't the best use of your time. Increase your efficiency and improve collaboration with the following expert advice. Don't Set Impractical Limits You have five days to collect and gather OASIS assessment data. Does your agency utilize the five-day window to facilitate communication? One person must sign the OASIS, but the data gathering can be a collaborative effort. Some agencies set 24-48 hour OASIS turn-around policies, but this can hamper accurate and collaborative data collection. If the nurse does the assessment and signs off on the OASIS, but the therapist doesn't come out until two days later, you're missing an opportunity to gather more detailed information about the patient's condition, says physical therapist Cindy Krafft, consultant with Fazzi Associates in Peoria, Ill. The 24- or 48-hour OASIS turn-around policy puts added [...]