If you don’t yet have your dream job, I recommend checking out these previous posts designed to help you get hired for a hospice social work position. When you do have one, start by putting together a hospice patient information spreadsheet like the one I describe in this article. It will help you manage both your productivity and your professional image.
My aunt taught me a great deal about politics while I was growing up. She told me during the 1988 race between George W. and Michael D. that the president’s first job is to get reelected. This goes for any professional in an uncertain economy and even more so in a field with as much turnover as can be seen in many hospices.
Go for the great second impression as a new employee
The first impression in your interview might not create as lasting an impression as we hope or expect. Your new agency will hire you with the hope–and not the certainty–that you will do well. They will look forward with hopeful eyes to seeing how you work out. The first first impression is what got you the job, but the second “first impression” will influence your chances of keeping it. It will be good to show that you are a team player and that you’ve got good hygiene, but the way to demonstrate quickly that you know what you’re doing is to get organized with your patient information right away.
Your custom-designed spreadsheet
You want to have a confident and accurate answer every time a question comes up about a patient. If someone asks whether or not a patient has a DNR or a funeral home chosen, you want to be able to answer. Your first mission is to make yourself a spreadsheet that shows just the basic demographic information you need on a daily basis and also information about medical power of attorney, the DNR and the funeral home.
Hopefully, your company will already have this information organized in a way that you can start with. My current hospice has a spreadsheet with all the information you’d expect on a face sheet in a row for each patient. All I needed to do to make my own was delete columns that I didn’t really need, such as allergies and zip code.
The columns that you want to make sure you have on your spreadsheet include:
- name
- frequency of visits
- record number
- diagnosis
- address
- name/phone number of power of attorney
- DNR status
- funeral home choice
- goals
Here’s an example below. Pardon the Star Wars references. Fictional characters are not protected by HIPAA.
Update your spreadsheet frequently
I update any changes weekly in Excel in the office, and when a change happens in the field, I mark it up with pen.
If there is an enrichment activity facilitated by the community that is available for most patients, you might put a column for that. This can help you remember if you already educated the patient about about the local nonprofit that trains baby goats to enrich the lives of senior citizens. For a real-life example, there is an organization in the Austin, TX, area called Swan Songs that facilitates professional musicians donating concerts to terminally ill patients. Since this is something that any hospice patient would be eligible for, I might put a column in my spreadsheet to keep track of whether or not I’ve spoken with a family about them.
I recommend this spreadsheet even when working in a paperless agency. Even electronic systems usually don’t enable you to see all of this information in one view.
Getting organized in this fashion is a great way to show initiative as a new team member. When we next return on Thursday, we’ll begin the series of articles on conducting initial psychosocial assessments for new patients. See you then!
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