New hosptial computer systems pull nurses away from patient care

meditech is awful. seems like every week administration adds something else to the program for us to chart. med reconcilliation in the er is especially time consuming since we do it on all patients, even the pt's that are not admitted. all the questions to screen for abuse, tb, immunizations for pnuemonia etc. and this is just the triage screen!!! when we had paper charting, seems the screening aspect of pt care tok less time

Charting on COWs should be easier, user-friendly, and not take the nurse away from his or her patients even more!!
In Florida, last hurricane season, with all the power outages, and generator failures, nurses had to resort to their own resources to get medicines and supplies b/c none of the computerized systems worked!!
Oh, the wonders of technology! And where were the back-up plans and systems the facilities were supposed to have in place???

Ii HAVE BEEN USING THE COMMPUTER SYSTEM FOR 5 YRS AND I WOULD GO BACK TO PAPER CHARTING IN A MINUTE. WE STILL HAVE TO WRITE INFO DOWN THEN ENTER INTO COMMPUTER LATER. OUR SYSTEM IS SLOW AND EVERYTIME YOU START SOMETHING SOMEONE CALLS YOU AWAY AND THEN YOU HAVE TO START ALL OVER CAUSE YOUR TIMED OUT,PLUS YOU HAVE TO REBOOT UP TO INDEX PICK THE PT YOUR WANTING TO CHART. WAIT TILL IT IS PULLED UP THEN YOUR CALLED AWAY AGAIN. YES WE HAVE MEDCARTS WITH A COMPUTER BUT YOU CAN'T DRAG IT INTO EVERY PT ROOM EVERY MINUTE AND YOU SHOULDN'T LEAVE IT IN THE ROOM IF YOU HAVE TO GO GET SOMETHING YOU DON'T HAVE THAT THE PT NEEDS. 9OUT OF 10TIMES. AS YOU CAN TELL I AM NOT VERY HAPPY. NOW OUR MEDICATIONS ARE ON COMPUTER AND THAT IS ANOTHER TIME CONSUMING PROCEDURE ESPECIALLY IF THE COMPUTER STARTS ACTING UP AND IT MAKES YOU LOOK INCOMPETENT. IT IS BETTER FOR THE PT THOUGH TO KEEP A PERSON FROM MAKING ERRORS BUT IT IS A PAIN FOR THE NURSES.
JUST WONDERING IF OTHER HAVE ELECTONIC MEDICATION RECORDS AND HOW THEY LIKE IT OR NOT.

To ERN91,
We Use Meditech also and I DON'T LIKE IT I Usually Have To Stay On Ot For 1-1/2hrs everytime I work. My usual day starts W 6 pts dc 3 and get 3 more in everyday I Work. Plus I am not very good At typing and That Makes Me Slower Too. Just Sounding Off. ALSO DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS.

My manager says that when we go to computerized charting, we will still have to do paper also... right now, we do incident reports on the computer, but still have to write paper ones to give to the manager... so I think it will really take away from patient time...

I was curious if the computerized systems have improved the admission process. For instance, if the ER enters in patient information, is it available when they arrive to the floor? without the need for another 100 questions and duplicate charting? What a wonderful concept! Just like a transfer- assess, check orders, and chart. Certainly beats the dreaded four-paged admission paperwork. Whew!

they gave us a 8 hour course, and i'm a "superuser" for the system, and you have to open all these "parameters." I'm learning...But it does pull you away from your patient...

One of the neurologists at my facility said about his patients "my patient needs my ear, my heart, and my hand...he doesn't need me to put my nose in a computer...."

atlantarn

Hello, I am new to this site but the topic of computerized charting caught my eye. I have worked at three hospitals (in the past 20 yrs) that have had computerized charting. i can say from experience that when you get use to it (and that might take one week to 2 months) it does give you more time for patient care. And I know that is why I became a nurse, to take care of the ill. We all hate paper work and this frees us in alot of ways. In fact I am looking into nurse informatics as a new career ( when I get old LOL) so would like any input on that. Again this is a great site and have enjoyed reading and getting to know everyone.

Oh my gosh! We have had Meditech for a week and I have never seen such chaos in my life! We knew through trial runs, classes and forums that the system is inefficient -and the hospital went ahead with Meditech anyway!!!! Even after going "live" months later than planned because of the problems! Found the East Coast reps to be no less than arrogant and unprofessional-not to mention digging for info on which docs said what about Meditech. I hope this system crashes and burns. It in itself is not a difficult way to chart, but the problems are time consuming-6 hours time consumed over one med in one shift!!!
Thanks for letting me vent.

We were provided 8 hours of system training prior to installation. The instructor said, "There is no way you can learn all this." Part of this problem is management insists on 35 different interventions for each patient. It also takes at least an hour to admit a somewhat healthy patient. This nightmare is called Meditech. I have worked in Star, Emtech, and Cerner and have found Meditech the worst by far. While this system takes away patient contact time, management decided to increase our patient ratio. Management also did not use this system on the floor and refused to listen to those that do.