by An about me sign has become one of my favorite ‘medical parenting’ tools. Hanging up the about me sign in the hospital helps make sure that everyone on AJ’s team has quick access to the information we consider important that might not be easily accessible in his chart. You can accomplish all of this by writing notes on a piece of paper and hanging them also – you do not need to have a fancy sign, but I’m sure it comes as no surprise to any of our blog readers that we had to have something cute and personalized.
AJ’s hospital about me sign has two sides. The first is the more “fun” information about AJ. When we hang the sign up in his room, this is the side that everyone sees.
On the Hospital About Me Sign Side we have:
- Photos of AJ
- A list of things he loves
- A list of people he likes
- The password to his ipad
- Trach suction depth (we hand write this on and don’t print it)
- Emergency Contact Info (mom and dad’s phone numbers)
- Ideas for how to calm him down
- A visual of some of the ASL signs he knows
On the backside we have a cheat sheet that helps during hospital admissions. Often when we are arriving, the last thing I want to do is go over meds and therapies. I want to be able to put my focus on him and what he needs. Having a cheat sheet that we can hand over to the team during his intake frees me up to be able to put my attention where it’s truly needed.
On the Hospital Admission Cheat Sheet we have:
- Photos of AJ
- Med Information (including dosage and schedule)
- Feeding Information (including volume, calories and schedule)
- Free Water Information (including volume and schedule)
- Flush Information
- Therapies (types & frequency)
- Pharmacy and DME (name and contact information)
- G-tube size and date last changed (date is handwritten)
- Emergency Contact Info (mom and dad’s phone numbers)
We laminate his hospital about me sign and keep it in his hospital bag and also have a plain paper copy folded up in his emergency bag. Because his G-tube and Trach size have been changing relatively often, we use a permanent marker to write his suction depth and change dates on the laminated paper. Permanent marker will wipe off if you use an alcohol wipe to erase it, so you can still change it!
We use these restickable dots to hang the sign in his room. I’ve also included a link to the laminator we have as well as the refill sheets we buy here. (These things come in SO handy!!)
We also have a version of the cheat sheet that shows his schedule for the day chronologically that includes his cares, feedings, therapies, bedtime routines, etc. We found this style of cheat sheet is better for our in-home nurses so they can follow along with what his day should look like. We print this front/back with the same hospital about me page.
If you’re wanting to build your own hospital about me sign, Canva makes it super easy to do and it’s free to sign up. If you don’t want to start from scratch — we’ve got you! We’ve made templates of our hospital about me sign available for download. The template is slightly different than AJ’s. It doesn’t include the ASL signs, but in it’s place are a couple of additional text boxes to display important information.
There are two versions of this template available – one that you can use with the free version of canva, and one that requires canva pro. In both templates you can edit the images and text, and rearrange or copy/paste to add additional boxes to the cheat sheet so you can customize it to fit your needs. On the version with Canva Pro you are also able to change colors and rearrange all of the decorative elements.
Download the templates here. If you have any trouble getting them to work for you — drop us a line and we’ll do our best to help.
