Working your shift

What you’ll do

Run a real shift on Synapse. Patients on the deck, tasks ticking down, notes building toward report, the Brain in your pocket for the questions you’d normally Google. Mid-shift, the dashboard is the shift.

Why nurses use this

This is the boring middle 11 hours. Not the start, not the end. The part where the app actually has to earn its place in your pocket. Synapse’s job mid-shift is to be where you put data and where you find data, without making you switch apps. The dashboard is built for the moment you’re walking out of a room, gloves in your hand, trying to remember whether you charted that 1300 BP.

How to get there

You’re already there. Once you tap Start Shift on the Welcome screen, the dashboard is the working surface for the next 12 hours. Background the app, foreground it, swipe between workspaces. The state is preserved.

Step-by-step

One way a 12-hour dayshift can map to Synapse. Your unit’s actual rhythm, med pass times, and admit timing will vary. Treat the timestamps below as an example, not a prescription:

1. 0700, take report. Use adding a patient: QR import if both nurses are on Synapse, dictate if you’re walking and talking, type if you have a moment to sit. Each new patient lands at the front of your deck.

2. 0730, initial assessments. Tap each patient card to open the sheet, fill in vitals as you go. Add a task (“walk Bed 4 to chair”) via double-tapping the Tasks chip.

3. 0830, apply your routine. Tasks chip menu → Assign routine. Drop the q4h vitals, the 0900/1300/1700 med pass, the daily weights, and end-of-shift charting onto today’s task list. See routines.

4. 0900, med pass. Tasks chip menu → Medication filter. The deck shows medication-only. Work through them, tap to check off. The chip count drops as you go.

5. 1015, rapid response on Bed 3. Open Bed 3’s patient sheet, open the patient-scoped Brain, ask “what’s the protocol for hypotension in a chest pain admit.” Read the answer between rounds. Add a note attached to Bed 3 capturing what happened.

6. 1100, charge nurse asks for an update. Open Notes workspace, find your “Shift handoff. Bed 3” note, read off your bullet points. Or open the patient timeline and walk through it.

7. 1300, med pass round 2. Same filter, same flow. The Tasks chip count tells you how many you have left without scrolling.

8. 1500, new admit on Bed 7. Dictate them. 30 seconds. New card on the front of the deck.

9. 1700, last med pass. Last filter, last count-down.

10. 1830, pre-report cleanup. Notes workspace. Sweep your shift notes into shape. The deck is your verbal report.

11. 1900, hand off. QR your patients to the oncoming nurse if they’re on Synapse. Otherwise read off from your notes deck.

Tips from the floor

• Tasks created during the shift window count toward the shift. Tasks you add outside the window (admin to-dos, personal reminders) don’t pollute the end-of-shift tally.
• Your place is saved in every workspace. Tabbing from Patients to Tasks and back doesn’t reset your scroll position. You return to the card you left.
• The chip counts are your at-a-glance. Glance at Patients → “5.” Glance at Tasks → “3 pending under Medication filter.” That’s most of the dashboard’s job.
• Use the per-patient Brain for clinical questions you’d normally Google. It already knows the patient context, so “what’s the dose of IV labetalol for this guy” doesn’t need re-explanation.
• Apply a routine once early. A routine assigned at 0830 schedules the next 11 hours of predictable tasks. The unpredictable parts are what you’re here for.
• Don’t be afraid to add notes you might delete. Mid-shift notes are scratch. End-of-shift is when you decide what survives.

Common questions

What if I background the app? The dashboard state survives. Voice mode in the Brain shuts the mic off when you background the app, so it doesn’t chew battery in your pocket. The shift window stays open.

What if my phone dies mid-shift? Your patients, tasks, and notes are saved on the phone and in your account. Borrow a charger, sign in on another device if you have to, and the shift is still there.

Can someone else cover patients for me? Per-nurse Synapse doesn’t have a “transfer to another nurse mid-shift” flow. But QR handoff effectively does it. Generate a QR for each of your patients, the covering nurse scans them. They’re on her deck within a minute.

Does Synapse pull data from the EHR mid-shift? No. Synapse sits next to the chart, not in it. Your patient data is what you’ve typed, dictated, scanned, or imported.

The Tasks chip count seems wrong. Check the filter. The count follows your active filter. If you’re on Medication and the count says “2,” that’s medication pending, not all pending.

Can I look up a patient I had two shifts ago? Previous patients view (Patients chip menu → Previous). From there you can re-add one to the current shift.

Where this fits in your shift

This is the shift, between starting and ending. The deeper guides on each surface (Patients, Tasks, Notes, the Brain) are how you drive each one. This guide is the rhythm.