These time management and charting tips for nurse practitioners are brought to you by The Nurse Practitioner Charting School– the one stop for all documentation resources created specifically for nurse practitioners.
As the work demands of a nurse practitioner increases, the level of support decreases. Not only do nurse practitioners assess, diagnose, and treat patients, we also have to address the “other tasks.”
Our time is split between seeing patients, documenting patient encounters, refilling medications, reviewing documentation, analyzing diagnostic data, and keeping up with patient messages. With the amount of tasks nurse practitioners need to do, it’s hard to stay on time.
On top of that, many clinics, hospitals, and healthcare institutions are trying to function while short staffed. There is a lack of medical assistants (MAs), nurses, even front office staff. This creates added roles that many nurse practitioners have to take on themselves.
Because of the staffing issues, some nurse practitioners are having to:
- Check in their own patients
- Draw labs or run point of care testing
- Schedule referrals
- Complete prior auths
- Respond to patient phone
Instead of delegating these tasks to support staff, nurse practitioners sacrifice their own time and energy to complete these duties.
It’s no wonder nurse practitioners have a lack of work-life balance and struggle with nurse practitioner burnout.
While improving time management and utilizing charting tips for nurse practitioners takes effort, it can dramatically improve a NPs productivity during the day. This in turn helps the nurse practitioner create a better work-life balance. Just think about never having to stay late at the office or no longer having to chart at home!
4 time management and charting tips for nurse practitioners
Complete a time log.
In order to implement the best charting tips for nurse practitioners, NPs first need to realize what consumes the most time. I encourage APRNs to keep track of how many hours they spend seeing and documenting an acute visit and routine/chronic visit.
How long does it take the nurse practitioner to complete medication refills, analyzing diagnostic data, reviewing medical documentation, and addressing patient messages? In the hospital setting, how long does it take the nurse practitioner to round up a medical-surgical patient vs. a PCU/ICU patient? How long does it take to see a possible discharge vs. an inpatient?
Keep track of how long it takes you to assess, diagnose, treat, and document the type of patient you see in your practice setting.
Then I want nurse practitioners to log their time throughout the day. Is there any activity that is consuming most of the time? Are there social interactions or distractions that keep the nurse practitioner from getting their charts signed in a timely manner?
Becoming aware of how NPs are spending their time helps to better implement the charting tips for nurse practitioners.
** The Time Management and Charting Tips Course offers time log worksheets. But it does not have to be fancy! NPs can keep track of how they spend their time with a piece of paper and a pen. What is most important is that you are becoming aware of how you spend your time.
Utilize electronic health record tools.
Creating templates and smart phrases takes more time upfront but can save so much time in the long run. I have templates made for an acute visit for adults, wellness visit for adults, acute for pediatric patients, wellness for pediatric patients, and sports physical. Through my charting system, these templates pull over information such as past medical history, allergies, home medications, diagnostic data, etc.
I also created smart phrases for common symptoms and diagnoses I see in my practice. For example, I have the history of present illness written out for preoperative visit, acute/sick visit, follow-up of hypertension. I also have discharge instructions for an upper respiratory illness, urinary tract infection, Type 2 diabetes, etc. I have smart phrases for procedures I do such as steroid joint injection, incision and drainage of abscess, laceration with suture repair.
The templates and smart phrases have saved me so much time because I can easily insert the information and then change anything that is specific to the patient. Charting tips for nurse practitioners, I encourage NPs to create these templates and smart phrases to save more time in the long run.
**The Nurse Practitioner Charting School offers a comprehensive list of smart phrases with access to over 100 smart/dot phrases!
Eliminate distractions.
Distractions can be a significant time suck for nurse practitioners. There are multiple distractions throughout the day. We may experience personal distractions on our phone such as text messages, email, social media.
Or workplace distractions such as talking with co-workers, phone calls, and all the other tasks we do as nurse practitioners (medication refills, analyzing diagnostic data, reviewing medical documentation, or responding to patient messages). As charting tips for nurse practitioners, I encourage NPs to eliminate these distractions in order to focus on one thing at a time.
For example, in order to eliminate social distractions, close your office door or if in a shared work space put up a sign next to your computer that says “do not disturb, I’m charting.” Also try utilizing headphones. Close out all your email and extra tabs on your computer. Place your personal phone in a drawer. Nurse practitioners can increase focus and become more productive by eliminating distractions.
Utilize Parkinson’s Law.
What is Parkinson’s Law? It was first introduced in 1955 by Cyril Northcote Parkinson.
Parkinson’s Law is the concept that work expands the allotted time for completion.
You likely utilized this concept in nurse practitioner school. For example: your instructor introduced the assignment about a paper due later in the semester. How many of you waited to write the paper until the last 6 hours before it was due?
With the submission time quickly approaching, you gave your complete focus and attention. You eliminated distractions and cranked out the work. You pushed submit minutes before it was due. This is an example of Parkinson’s Law. You were aware the paper was due the entire semester and yet waited to start it until hours before it was due. The work filled that entire time available to complete the task.
Another example is if your child has a ball game right after work. You are determined to make the game and are focused and motivated to get your work done. And guess what? You are super productive that day and get the work done.
On days you do not have commitments after work, you are not as productive and may stay late to finish work or bring your charts home. Remember the concept of Parkinson’s Law and create deadlines to keep you motivated. Or ask a coworker to be your accountability buddy and commit to leaving work at the same time. These charting tips for nurse practitioners will help to increase productivity and get the charts signed.
Additional time management and charting tips for nurse practitioners
Utilizing these charting tips for nurse practitioners can improve time management and productivity. Through my work as The Burned-out Nurse Practitioner, I discovered that lack of work-life balance is the #1 cause of nurse practitioner burnout.
And the #1 cause of work-life imbalance is CHARTING! So many nurse practitioners are staying late at the office or bringing charts home, disrupting their work-life balance.
This is why I created The Nurse Practitioner Charting School. To be the one stop for all documentation resources created specifically for nurse practitioners.
The Nurse Practitioner Charting School offers additional charting tips for nurse practitioners through the Time Management and Charting Tips Course. This online course teaches NPs how to chart accurately and efficiently so they can STOP charting at home.
The Nurse Practitioner Charting School also offers a comprehensive list of smart phrases NPs can easily implement into their electronic medical records.
Learn more at Nurse Practitioner Charting School!
