Long-Term Care Survey Alert

Try these quick tricks to avoid getting tripped up.

You're getting ready to pour the morning meds when a surveyor appears over your shoulder to watch. And you know one wrong move could saddle the facility with an F tag, not to mention jeopardizing your performance record.

Never fear: A couple of strategies can help you avoid making common mistakes or getting sidetracked by a non-cooperative resident, reassures Kristi Kemper, RN, a quality assurance nurse with TSW Management Group Inc., which manages and owns nursing facilities in California.

Example: "During a med pass when the nurse has a lot of meds to give, the nurse can open up the med sheet and put a little dot by each medication on the med sheet so the nurse knows she poured that medication," suggests Kemper. That approach can help the nurse avoid skipping a medication.

Also: Sometimes nurses get nervous knowing that a certain resident typically requires a lot of time to take his medications, adds Kemper. In that scenario, she tells the nurse to go ahead and a put a little clip by that resident's name and go on to the next resident. Then come back to that resident marked by the clip after you've hit your stride in giving meds and feel more comfortable with surveyors observing.

Another way to combat survey jitters: Kemper finds that the more she observes nurses doing med pass to make sure they are following protocol, "the less nervous they get because they know what to expect. They get in the right habits and do fine during the survey."