Here's the thing with electronic charting...it is constantly changing and being updated. All to be more efficient right? Of course not. Every time some area of it changes, they add more things to do!
For example charting an IV start has become nightmarish. Here is what is required: size, site, time, date, prepped according to hospital policy (yes/no), number of attempts, things used to help you (ultrasound,etc), inserted prior to arrival?
Same for a blood transfusion. First of all, figuring out how to even find it is a challenge. First you release the unit in the computer. Fill out a paper !! and send to blood bank. Go in computer and fill out following: kind of blood product, unit number, expiration date, patient blood type, patient med rec number, special blood patient number, patient teaching, permission from patient to get blood, vital signs, administration rate, verify all of above with another nurse.
Don't even get me started on conscious sedation and what that requires...so if you wonder why your nurse doesn't spend much time with you - they are at the computer filling in the hundreds of blanks they have to fill in on a daily basis.
4 comments:
Our hospital just did an update that took out all prior med lists and of course everyone comes in just knowing maybe any changes if your lucky and thinking we have their list. In a perfect world everyone brings a typed exact list of their meds every time.....not in our world!
And you touched on something. I get into an electronic form and then I realize I need some information from another electronic form which I can't access without getting out of the one I'm in. Then I open the new one and get the information and get back into the old one, sometimes after opening three or four other things because I can't remember what I'm looking for, and then I open the one I need and I've forgotten the information I was after in the first place.
Kind of makes me long for the old days when we used a clip-board, paper forms & ink pens. Simple but very effective. Added bonus: you could stand next to the patient (no matter if they were in the hallway, the lobby, or the treatment bay), give them their discharge instructions while taking that last set of vitals or putting on a splint, have them sign said discharge form, give them their copy and be DONE with them AND their chart!!!
Do you know what system you're using? It's so frustrating to hear how many nurses have bad experiences with EHRs, they really shouldn't be that hard for us to use.
I actually work with EHR Tutor which is a way for instructors to expose future nurses to EHRs in the workplace, but no amount of education makes a not-so-great program easy to use.
Hopefully the system you use works out some of its kinks!
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