Develop guidelines for aides' self-scheduling
Meridia Home Health of Mayfield Village, OH, has created a system for aides to make their own schedules and copy the information down on calendars created for this purpose.
Joan W. Phillips, RN, home care aide services coordinator for the agency, set up a consistent process to be used by aides when they do their own schedules. Here's the format she developed:
1. Copy the calendar.
· The original calendar is placed behind the primary aide's visit calendar in the team binder.
· The copy of the calendar goes to the primary aide for future scheduling.
2. Make time for scheduling.
On Wednesday or Thursday of each week, the aides come into the office to schedule their patients for aide service to be provided in the coming week. Aide partners are encouraged to come into the office and do their scheduling at the same time. The scheduling is initiated and completed in the following manner:
Aides may schedule themselves to see five to six patients per day. The aide does the scheduling on the original copy of his/her monthly schedule. The aide will refer to the original calendar of each of his/her patients, one by one, and check for any changes that have been made in aide service frequency. After checking the patient's frequency, the aide enters the patient's name on the schedule as appropriate to the ordered frequency and to the following guidelines:
· The aide follows scheduling recommendations. (See recommendations, above.)
· The aide incorporates patient preferences for day(s) of service into the schedule as much as possible.
· The aide enters his/her initials on the patient's original calendar in the box representing the day(s) of the week on which the patient will receive aide service.
· If the aide is not scheduled to work Tuesday or Thursday of the coming week, the aide must:
- enter the patients who would usually be seen on that day(s) into another day of his/her schedule;
- or ask his/her partner to place the patient on the partner's schedule.
- If neither aide has room on his/her schedule to see the patient, the aide to whom the patient belongs will contact the scheduling monitor to schedule the patient.
· If a patient needs weekend service, the aide will schedule the patient with his/her partner. However, if neither partner is working the weekend, the aides will schedule the patient with the aide assigned to the geographic area closest to where the patient lives or with a volunteer aide who is working the weekend.
· Each aide double-checks his/her scheduling against each patient's original calendar.
· Each aide's partner checks the other's schedule for accuracy.
3. Scheduling monitor fills in when needed.
· If an aide is off for an extended period of time, the scheduling monitor will be responsible for taking the steps necessary to provide coverage for that aide's patients.
· The patients of any aide that calls off will be re-assigned to another aide by the scheduling monitor.
· The hospitalization, service discharge, or death of any patient receiving aide service will be called in to the scheduling monitor, as will all other aide service cancellations. The scheduling monitor will enter this information on the appropriate aide's schedule and patient's calendar.
· The scheduling monitor is responsible for maintaining equality among all aides' schedules.
4. Start all over with recertification.
A new calendar will be generated with each recertification. The new calendar will indicate the number of weeks in the new certification, as well as the frequency of aide service for each of those weeks.
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