The only way you can possibly add LC home visits to your already full
employment plate is to hire another LC!  And how do you convince your
"superiors" that this is necessary?  We had a similar situation in our
hospital 5 yrs ago; at that time, if you delivered a baby on the weekend, the
LC wasn't available!  What we did was begin documenting exactly how many
inpt., outpt, and phone contacts we made daily.  We also conducted a Pt.
satisfaction survey--they provided glowing reports of our wonderful lactation
services.  This info. could be presented in mtg. format to your hosp. CEO's
--also any info on revenue generated from your services is helpful.  Today,
we have 5 LC's on staff who take care of inpt. and outpt. bf issues as well
as do our home visits.

Therese Weickert, RNC, CLE