Posted on 12/26/2015 6:31:32 PM PST by Mangia E Statti Zitto
A FRIEND was recently hospitalized after a bicycle accident. At one point a nursing student, together with a more senior nurse, rolled a computer on wheels into the room and asked my friend to rate her pain on a scale of 1 to 10.
She mumbled, "4 to 5." The student put 5 into the computer --- and then they left, without further inquiring about, or relieving, my friend's pain.
This is not an anecdote about nurses not doing their jobs; it's an illustration of what our jobs have become in the age of electronic health records. Computer documentation in health care is notoriously inefficient and unwieldy, but an even more serious problem is that it has morphed into more than an account of our work; it has replaced the work itself.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
wait until they get the bill for that bit of “electronic data collection”
I spent a while in the hospital this summer, and I am quite familiar with nurses rolling around with computers. Bar code readers, too. They’d roll up to me four times a day. They’d greet me by name (a way to initially verify that they’d rolled into the correct room). They knew why I was there, what were the doctor’s orders specifically for me, what medications I needed, and exactly when. They would use the bar code reader and read the bar code on the wrist band on my wrist, at once, to verify that I was the right patient, and not the mr. sitetest down the hall in room 305b, and to double-check the correct drugs. Then, they’d use the bar code reader to read the bar codes on my medications (which were individually dispensed by the hospital pharmacy with my barcode information on the outer packaging). A mismatch between any of the three methods, they would dispense the medications.
Then, they’d check to see what tests, procedures, or treatments I was to be administered.
I found the computerization well-implemented, and a real time and effort saver (As well as a mistake preventer!).
I have dealings with three hospitals in my region, and all three have well-implemented IT systems, as well as many of our family’s physicians.
Sounds like she doesn’t want to leave a paper trail.
Oh yes, the pain scale. It’s probably responsible for thousands of deaths a year. The patient says their pain is a ten, chart it and then give them more Dilaudid. Never mind that they are breathing four times a minute and only respond to a sternal rub. You can’t put that number 10 in the computer and not treat it. There is no place to chart that the patient is F.O.S. I tell them on a scale of one to ten and four being the highest what’s your pain. You better say four or the computer will never let you out of the Recovery Room. I had a nurse say “with the computer it’s like I have two patients to take care of” to which I replied “that may be true, but only one is alive”.
What part of the country do you live in? That sounds weird.
Highly unusual for there to be a charge from one doctor to another.
Saw it when my Dad was in the hospital. The nurses were punching away on the computers at the work station literally MOST of the time. They are secretaries, not nurses. My wife was a nurse (back in the day) ... she too could not believe the computer time the nurses were spending instead of on patient care. When you walk behind them, they weren’t playing games ... columns and columns of numbers and letter like entries. Something wrong with what’s going on, for sure. (Not the nurses’ fault, they obviously have to do it).
Would it have been better with a pen an a clipboard? Could the nurse have given any drugs without a doctor signing off on it? If it is done right, the doctor could have remotely approved the meds with electronic forms.
The only problem I've had with electronic forms is that my doctor's forms have no way to indicate a drug taken on an as needed basis, so when I went to the hospital I told seven different people I wasn't taking it then (outside of allergy season) but ended up with it in my morning pills anyway. :-(
although we're a Catholic hospital, Press-Gainy is our God..(its a rating agency..probably butchered the spelling)
At the risk of being old fashioned, the system isn’t the culprit. The people using it are, and indifferent attitudes are as old as pen and paper.
I guess this is one hazard in the way things are done now (and it’s this Epic software, the ONLY software that happened to meet the criteria of Obamacare — I actually interviewed there a few years ago, and while it tries to be nice and encourage bright thinking, it also may miss some of what actually matters).
They possibly were so enamored of their own brilliance that they forgot to design a way to get expert medical supervision into the system design. They went at it like brilliant amateurs and ended up with things like this, and like what I saw — I was sensitive to one steroid so the system duly recorded it as though I was sensitive to all, and they couldn’t prescribe me a different steroid until they took that note out of their system altogether.
I use CERNER which is terrible. I have heard people who use EPIC refer to it as “SEPTIC”.
Computer On Wheels
I don’t know if this story is true or not, but I heard it at a hospital I service.
Seems a notice went out to all staff not to refer to the Computer On Wheels as the COW. One nurse asked another nurse if she knew where the COW was. The other nurse replied “Room 204”. Unfortunately, Room 204 had a VERY overweight female patient that overheard the conversation, and complained.
Urban Legend???
I recommend you look over the nurse’s shoulder when she is taking a history or reviewing your history.
Happened to see the screen one time as the nurse was reviewing my history and lifestyle.
I was surprised at the number of mistakes mine had and required correcting.
One I recall was having me as a heavy drinker. The truth is a little wine before dinner most days.
There were a few others. If the nurse is in a hurry and strokes the wrong key, it’s in your permanent record.
I had bypass surgery June 30th.
I had a similar experience to you. Very professional staff, always there when needed and my records were kept in order.
It sounds weird to say this but considering I had a triple bypass it was almost enjoyable for a 4 day stay in the hospital.
First time it’s happened. Sent from New Hampshire to south Florida, and charged to me by Health Point.
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