How do you plan your route when you have multiple patients to visit who live in different parts of town?
Start close to home and end close to home
Map quest the address. I prefer to drive out to the farthest address, so I dont hit traffic coming back home.
When I worked home health, the nurses' patients/visits were assigned by location. One nurse had patients to the north, one was assigned patients that were in the south, etc. It allowed each nurse to schedule visits in order of their location to save time. The nurse would see the patient closest to the office, then the patient a little farther out, etc.
Avoid back and forth, criss cross travel. You may have to be a little more forceful with the patients in directing the times of your visits so you can travel in an efficient road. Allow plenty of travel time for the unexpected delays if you are in a city
It all depends on the TIME that the patient has requested the visit. I would never just pop in on a patient unless I was suspicious of the caregiver and respected a time that was good for both patient and caregiver. Then plan your route around the times requested, as long as they are reasonable times. And clock all your milage from the first visit to the last . All Agencies should be paying milage for visits.
I always try to contact my patients the night before and let them know an approximate visit time. I check mileage and time between patients and make my route accordingly, I try to start at the furthest point and make my last stop close to the office or home, trying not to back track.
Gather all of the addresses of the patient's and start your day with the one the lives the furthest out and work your way back in. Also I will make a phone call to them the day before to make sure they will be home as well
there is always walkie talkies or a computer voice for google assistant for futuristic cars or even better a speaker comp voice system for space ships or ecars when your in the air flying 'driving' around for check-in employment facilities
I have 22 pts. They are about an hour mostly from the office. I plan to see approximately 6 pts a week. I try to group pts that is locally together.
by the streets or if there is like here in Memphis by zip code. That way you aren't going from side of town to the other several times a day
I would normally start the farthest out then work my way back toward home or office unless I had a scheduled lab or I’ve therapy, then I would have to skip around a bit.
it all depends on your area, start adjusting your schedule as you go. Sometimes I travel 10 miles, other days 100 miles. Get to know your area.
I call my patients the night before and begin at the farthest point working toward my home. Or I schedule all the ones west on one day then east on another day. Sometimes you just have to do clusters and set appointments to save gas and time. Hope that helps.
