What do you think of electronic health records (MediTech, Epic, etc.)?

Nurses General Nursing

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Nurses who use electronic health records (MediTech, Epic, etc), would you mind taking a couple minutes to give me your opinions on the following questions? (I am an RN working toward a BSN and this is for an Informatics project)

  1. What do you think of electronic health records (MediTech, Epic, etc.).
  2. What do you see as the pros and cons relative to workflow? (How does the use of computers and technology speed up or slow down your day, enhance or interfere with good patient care, etc?)
  3. How does EHR help meet Joint Commission's patient safety goals. (The patient safety goals for hospitals are listed in the image below

NPSGHLP14_back.jpg

klone, MSN, RN

14,790 Posts

Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.

What is the specific requirement of your assignment? Are you supposed to answer those questions with your own thoughts and opinions, or are you actually supposed to get feedback from other nurses? Have you asked nurses in real life, such as your colleagues?

How do YOU think EHRs help meet JC's NPSGs?

nowim clean

296 Posts

PROS you can read the doctors orders, i would not work at a place with paper charting

cons the programers need to listen to bedside nurses on what would make the flow easier for us.

2Ask

107 Posts

What is the specific requirement of your assignment? Are you supposed to answer those questions with your own thoughts and opinions, or are you actually supposed to get feedback from other nurses? Have you asked nurses in real life, such as your colleagues?
The assignment is to get opinions from other people who are using the systems. I use Meditech at work and submitted my critique in a former assignment. The assignement is due next Monday and next time I work is Fri-Sun- three 12's so I won't see my colleagues in time to ask them.

2Ask

107 Posts

cons the programers need to listen to bedside nurses on what would make the flow easier for us.

What suggestions for the programmers would you have nowim?

Specializes in Inpatient Oncology/Public Health.

We use Soarian. Definitely like orders being in the system and can't wait til progress notes are in there too.

We are still double charting and some things we should be charting(patient education for example) is in a really nonintuitive place and gets missed a lot.

Muser69

176 Posts

Specializes in Critical care.

Use to love the days when we were nurses before we were attached to these cows.

canoehead, BSN, RN

6,890 Posts

Specializes in ER.

I remember when the charts were all paper. The lab results appear faster, as soon as the lab has them, when they come up on computer. We used to deal with little lost slips of paper, or waiting a couple hours for the porter to come around with results. Otherwise, charting, entering orders, most everything else, I am neutral between paper and computer. Nursing can become a fill-in-the-blank profession when everything is on computer. I'd rather be able to grab a piece of paper and get it all written in one spot.

Editorial Team / Admin

Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN

6 Articles; 11,662 Posts

Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Pros: no questionable orders when attempting to read a doctor's chicken scratch (I don't think some of the ones I work with even qualify for being called handwriting it's that bad)

quicker access to lab results (I've seen them before the lab even calls to report a critical value)

Can be another safety check against med errors

Cons: not really nurse friendly

I feel like my patient is the electronic bits on wheels instead of the person in the bed

Patients don't really get the full attention of a nurse who is trying to put information into the computer

Not really able to individualize to patients

Drop down boxes can be a pain- either so long it takes forever to scroll through and find the entry you want or far too easy to click on the wrong option

I honestly miss the days where I didn't really have to double and triple document everything. My OR record, if it were to be printed out, is 14 pages in our computerized system. When we were using paper records, it was all of 3 and I wasn't documenting information about anesthesia tasks (I have to put in the lines inserted, ASA, other information that isn't really in my scope of practice but needs to be in the chart, and by default the nurse, not the anesthesia provider, puts it in)

Leonardo Del Toro, RN

1 Article; 730 Posts

Specializes in "Wound care - geriatric care.

My biggest criticism of EHR charting is that instead of simplifying the work, it does the opposite. In theory computer charting could be more simple but because it does cut a lot of corners they decided to fill that time with more detailed and precise charting – most of it, redundant and useless. More than ever the biggest part of our job is to create these amazing detailed spreadsheets some administrator can enjoy rather than doing real patient care. This is really unfortunate.

For example when I used to do a PPD test it only took 6 minutes. 5 minutes to do the test and one minute to documente it. Now it can take almost a half an hour to do the same thing! 5 minutes to place a PPD and than a nightmare of multiple clicks and opening windows to enter the order and have it appear so other nurses will see. What is the cost benefit of that?

I spend way more time in front of the computer than any other activity on the floor. And if I leave the computer because there is an emergency or a admission, when I come back I will be punished with tasks that have not been done at the right time taking me even more time to change the time stamp. I feel like whoever designed these software consulted with nurses that have not been on the floor for years.

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