[racing-mom4]

Memo: As of Friday May 16th we will no longer have internet access on the medical floors.

That is what I was greeted with yesterday. Now I am not a huge internet user but when the night is slow and the unit is clean and the patients are sleeping and the ordering is complete and my charting is done, I have been known to log onto allnures or my bank, or my email.

Now I have used the internet to look up diagnosis and print them off for patients, I have also printed off what a heart cath is and what to expect for patients families. I have logged onto Yahoo Maps and printed off point to point directions from our hospital to the hospital your husband is being transfered to.

My thought at 1st was to take these job related internet uses to my Admin, but by a simple search of my user name they would see that I visit emedicine about 5 times last compared to the 25 chocolate martini recipes I looked up the other night!!!

So my thought is ok, go with it, when the Doc wants me to print off something from emedicine and I tell him I cant, OK, when I need point to point directions from our hosptial to another I will just call our DON and ask her to fax them up to me. I think that may be my plan, just keep calling admin for faxes of information they can pull up on the internet.

Just venting here----so do any of you not have internet use at your hospital?? I just cant get the thought out of my head of they are throwing baby out with the bathwater!!

[nrsang97]

We have internet access. I primarily use it to surf allnurses, my email, my bank, and a few other sites like emedicine. I really think we should have access to look up diagnosis, and treatments.

[Michigan RN]

Originally Posted by nrsang97

We have internet access. I primarily use it to surf allnurses, my email, my bank, and a few other sites like emedicine. I really think we should have access to look up diagnosis, and treatments.

Same here.

[Cindy-san]

I have internet access at my new job.

They took it away from us at my old job b/c some people were literally sitting playing on-line games all day and ignoring the patients, which also lead to computer virus issues.

I don't know where they found the time, I was always running my bass off. But then again, they weren't the best nurses either...

I was rather p.o.-ed because I couldn't look up meds that weren't in the drug books anymore.

But everyone from the nursing VIP & downward heard my complaints about that before I left.

[Medic04]

We had issues with a few folks, and ours was taken away. I was always too busy to play with it, but others not only did for pt care but ebay, hotels and other things. UGH, a few folks ruined it for everyone.

[rn/writer]

No matter how much free time you have, I wouldn't be visiting my bank or non-work email on such a public computer. That is a huge security risk.

That said, I've used Internet access at work to look up various medical conditions, meds, side effects, procedures, etc. Most of the time it's for my own understanding. I'm careful about handing things out to patients. There is the potential for the information to differ from what their doc has told them or for there to be some other kind of conflict or discrepancy. But I have found some highly useful data, including tips on helping a Down Syndrome baby with flaccid muscle tone and poor suck to breastfeed successfully.

I would be sad if that access disappeared.

[Angie O'Plasty, RN]

Generally, I'm using the internet to look up things fast, like meds or dx's and things like that.

It has to be very very slow (once in a blue moon) for me to check my email.

And I never ever use their computer to check my bank account.

I can still use my PDA to do personal things on the Internet as they have WiFi throughout the hospital, so it'd be kinda counterproductive for them to get rid of the Internet, IMO.

[Grace Oz]

May I please offer another perspective on this. From an employer perspective. Not to discount the posters thoughts or feelings or perspective. Not for one minute. I just would like to offer this for consideration, if I may:

I think the using of the internet by employees for personal reasons is a bit like using the phones for personal reasons.

Those communication tools are there for work related purposes.
Paid for by the employer.
The employee is there for work, not for any other reason.
Employees are paid to do the job they're hired to do.
I don't know of any job description which includes time out for personal use of the communication tools in the workplace, apart from in an emergency of course. Paid for by the employer.

As I say, just offering another perspective here.

[Batman24]

Originally Posted by Grace Oz

Those communication tools are there for work related purposes. Paid for by the employer.
The employee is there for work, not for any other reason.
Employees are paid to do the job they're hired to do.
I don't know of any job description which includes time out for personal use of the communication tools in the workplace, apart from in an emergency of course. Paid for by the employer.

There needs to be some common sense applied here by both parties. If nurses are working 12 hour days without a lunch/break and need to per se make a quick call to make sure their kids are okay or check online if a banking problem was cleared up then both should be no issue. If a nurse is spending 2 hours a day gossiping on the phone or playing Internet Solitaire that wouldn't be. My guess is the latter is the exception more than the rule.

[racing-mom4]

Grace Oz--no offense taken. My husband owns a business so I totally can appreciate using technology we pay for phone/internet for personal reasons. On the flip side, we dont own a sweat shop--we hire intelligent human beings who give us there all and who spend more waking time at our business than there own homes. I trust them to find a balance between doing what needs to get done for us and still managing their home life.

My thought is this, I for one nor have I ever seen a nurse at my facility say "oh I will get their meds as soon as I pay my electric bill" or "let me get that xray order put in after I finish emailing the schools principal"

Had we have had an employee like that, then there internet access should be suspended by disabling their password.

My thought is this, I am a competent employee who does do the job I am paid to do and then some. I am at work 12 hours a day, I may not get around to emailing my daughters chemistry teacher at home, ordering my son the extra guitar hero guitar from Toys R us online for this birthday as they were sold out in the stores. At 3am if my patients are sleeping, the unit is clean, ordering is complete and I have 10 min of down time I see nothing wrong with logging on and doing those things. Just as I see nothing wrong with calling home at midnight to make sure my teenagers made it home safe and sound.

I think it all comes down to balance. As well as trust and not taking advantage of certain perks we may have access too. So because of apparently a few bad seeds that I have never seen, I feel as we are all getting punished.

Oh well nothing I can do about it now...it is a minor irritant to me and I will soon get over it. Thanks for the great responses...