Meditech in the Ambulatory Care setting

[CathyL]

I work in a very busy outpatient Chemotherapy unit. Our hospital has been using meditech for several years and during a change in managers, it was decided that we would use on line documentation. I have been unable to find another ambulatory clinic using this method of charting. I am finding that it has increased our work load dramatically and we are now documenting in triplicate. We still have to do manual charting on the daychart and we keep a flow sheet that travels with the patient to other facilities, as well as the computer documentation. I have questioned why we are using this method of online documentation, as the other ambulatory areas in the hospital are not (surgical ambulatory, ER, radiology). The answer has been for workload measurement, but at present they are unable to extrapalate that data!!! I would be very interested to hear what others are doing and if there is a way to improve this system for the outpatient setting. Thanks in advance.