The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has specific regulations on reporting employees who provide direct patient care. One major aspect of these regulations is that they must be displayed in a prominent place readily accessible to residents and visitors and presented in a clear and readable format. Many nursing facilities print a daily report from the previous day and place this information on a clipboard posted in one location. This process requires an individual to perform this function daily. Visitors who want to see this information must ask where it is posted and the information is from the previous day. Nursing facilities needed a better way to have this information live, available to residents and visitors on demand, and automatically updated. Time Equipment Company built Attendance Display.
Client Needed A Way To Display Employee Schedules & Attendance
Columbia Lutheran Home in Seattle, WA, has offered innovative, quality short and long-term care for over 100 years. Its on-site nurse staffing is among the highest in Washington. While their nurse staffing is high, the ability to recall this information immediately was not up to CMS standards. Columbia Lutheran Home had all the information but needed a better way to gather and display it. One of the challenges is that the census information (number of patients on-site) and the nurse schedule with attendance were on two different reports. Columbia Lutheran Home asked Time Equipment Company to help bring this information into one location.
Requirements
CMS requires a report from all skilled nursing facilities that take Medicare that includes the following information:
- The name of the facility
- Current Date
- Resident Census
- Definition of shifts for the facility (e.g., 7 AM to 3 PM, 3 PM to 11 PM, 11 PM to 7 AM)
- The number of licensed and non-licensed nurses by category (RN, LPN, or CNA) providing direct resident care for each shift
- Actual time worked for each nurse on-site
- Total hours worked for each shift
Most of this information is in Attendance on Demand (AOD) because Columbia Lutheran Home entered schedules for their nursing staff. The only piece of information not in AOD was the daily census.
As stated earlier, this information must be available to all residents and visitors upon request. Previously, Columbia Lutheran Home printed a report from AOD, wrote the census on the report, and placed it on a clipboard behind the front desk. However, printing the report was overlooked if a supervisor was not in the building. They wanted to remove the human element from the process and still be in compliance with CMS.
Solution
Technicians at Time Equipment Company built Attendance Display.
This site shows the nurse’s position, schedule, schedule hours, actual punch in and out, the total number of hours, and how many of each nurse designation were on each shift. It also showed if the nurse was Present, Absent, or Completed their shift. The information displayed would be updated every time new information came into Attendance on Demand using their Application Programming Interface (API).
Attendance Display has different viewing options. It can display each shift individually or the entire day on one screen.
The screen also had a Dark Mode, allowing the screen to have a black background instead of white. It can be automatically set to sunrise and sunset or activated manually. This option was important to avoid having a bright screen on for 24 hours and possibly disturbing residents.
A prompt to update the census displays daily on the screen to remind the management staff to update their count.
Finally, a daily report is emailed to designated supervisors for Columbia Lutheran Home to keep for future audits. The system also allows them to recall reports for a specific day manually.
Results
Columbia Lutheran Home installed several monitors throughout the facility specifically to show Attendance Display. Staff no longer needs to print the report daily and attach it to the clipboard. The entire staff can see how many staff are on-site and how many are scheduled for the next shift, which is an unintended bonus. Columbia Lutheran Home is confident that it can pull any daily report as needed and comply with CMS.
How We Can Help
Attendance Display is a new offering from Time Equipment Company using the power of Attendance on Demand’s API to display schedules, on-site staff, and staff for the next shift. For more information on how your organization can get Attendance Display, download the Case Study or contact Time Equipment Company at sales@timeequipment.com or 800-997-8463.
