Bedside Computer Charting in Isolation Rooms

[RNKPCE]

I have not got much response from nursing informatics or the infectious disease forum, maybe you all can give me some information.

We are going Live with a new bedside computer charting system 2 weeks from today. The hospital does not have an overall plan on how to handle the computer use in the isolation rooms. They are leaving it up to individual units to figure this out. We are going paperless and in order to pass meds to patients in the isolation rooms we will need to have a computer physically in the room. Some people have mentioned that we can use plastic sleeves to cover the computer but realistically just taking the cover off without contaminating the computer when you leave the room would require a 2nd person. The other thought is to leave the computer in the room and clean between patients. We won't always have isolation patients in these rooms. Either way the computer will have to be cleaned between patients. A poster in another discussion mentioned washable keyboards but what about the computer itself.

Is there anybody who can give me a heads up on what they do at their facility?

Also we will be using tablet pc's and cows(computers on wheels). We are worried that managing to carry a tablet pc, possibly a clipboard, and meds might be a disaster waiting to happen. Any input on thiswould be appreciated as well.

Help! We are done to the wire:uhoh21: l

[mustanggirl]

Working in PACU we used to have one nurse inside the isolation room and one nurse charting outside the isolation room when we first started charting on computer. We have since sought out what nurses did on the floors and found that they were leaving one computer in the isolation room with the patient, then wiping it down between patients, which is what we now do. Our computers are laptops on some kind of expensive cart that works very well, the screens are inside a box with a window and our keyboards are covered with plastic, so we just wipe the whole thing down with a sani wipe when we are done.

[RNKPCE]

Mustanggirl,

Can you find out the name of the company that makes the cart with the box the screen is behind?

[mustanggirl]

Yeah, I'll check when I work on Monday

[veegeern, BSN, RN]

We have COWs. Each nurse uses a COW for their team. If you take it into the isolation room, then you wipe it, the scanner, etc...with the sani cloths upon leaving the room.

[mustanggirl]

Hi, the computer carts we use for our laptops are by Stinger Medical. They are the Levitator model. The companys website is www.stingermedical.com Hope this helps.

[ParrotHeadRN]

We have bedside computers in every room, which eliminates the isolation problem. The keyboards have plastic covers and the computers get cleaned after every patient. Of course, we are a 16 bed intensive care unit; don't know if that would be cost effective for a med/surg floor, if that's what you are. Do you have specific isolation rooms? You could get individual computers for those rooms.