For Registered Nurses ·
What you'll accomplish
By the end of this guide, you'll have Claude Pro configured as your personal nursing documentation assistant — set up with the context of your unit, patient population, and common documentation tasks. Instead of starting from scratch every time you need an SBAR note or patient education material, Claude will already understand your work context. Most nurses report saving 30–45 minutes per shift once this is set up.
What you'll need
What you should see: The Claude chat interface, clean and simple — a message box at the bottom, conversation area above.
Before configuring anything, test Claude with a real task. Type this into the message box:
"You are a nursing documentation assistant. Help me write a shift handoff SBAR note for a post-op day 2 patient after laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Patient is stable: vitals within normal limits, pain managed at 3/10 with oral meds, tolerating clear liquids, ambulated twice with physical therapy, incision sites dry and intact, awaiting one more set of vitals before anticipated discharge tomorrow."
Click send. You'll get a formatted SBAR in about 5 seconds.
What you should see: A well-organized SBAR with Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation sections. Edit anything that doesn't match exactly.
Troubleshooting: If the output is too long, add "Keep it under 200 words" to your prompt.
Create a note in your phone (Notes app, Google Keep, or similar) with your 3–5 most-used Claude prompts. This makes it one-tap to paste and use on shift. Include:
You'll refine these over a few shifts as you discover what works best for your patient population.
If you upgrade to Claude Pro ($20/month), you can create a "Project" — a persistent workspace where Claude always remembers your unit context.
You are a nursing documentation assistant for a registered nurse working on a 28-bed medical-surgical unit at a community hospital. Common patient types: post-surgical, CHF, COPD exacerbations, sepsis, pneumonia, orthopedic procedures. EHR system: Epic.
Help me draft: SBAR notes, patient education materials, care plan goals, incident reports, and professional communications. Always use NANDA nursing diagnosis format when applicable. Keep documentation concise and clinically precise. Never include real patient names or identifying information — I will always provide de-identified descriptions.
What you should see: Every new conversation in this Project starts with Claude already knowing your unit context. No need to re-explain each time.
Establish a simple habit over your next 3 shifts:
1. Shift handoff SBAR: "Write a shift handoff SBAR note. Patient: [diagnosis, day of stay]. Status: [vitals, pain, mobility]. Events: [what happened this shift]. Pending: [labs, orders, family issues]. Under 150 words."
2. Discharge instruction simplification: "Rewrite this discharge instruction at a 6th grade reading level, short sentences, no jargon: [paste de-identified text]"
3. Care plan goals: "Write 2 SMART nursing care plan goals and 4 evidence-based interventions for nursing diagnosis: [diagnosis and related factor]"
4. Incident report: "Write a clinical incident report narrative for: [bullet points of what happened, actions taken, notifications made]. Factual and objective tone."
5. Patient education: "Write a 1-page patient education handout about [topic] for [patient type]. 5th grade reading level, bullet points, include when to call the doctor."