Do nurses at your LTC facility text the docs?

[inkydorei]

i had a nurse tell me the other day to "just text Dr. H and he will text you back the order" What??!!

i have not been told by Dr H or management that this is accepted practice, yet several other nurses have said 'oh yea, we do that all the time.'

Do you text your doctors for orders? Do you feel comfortable doing so? Is the response time shorter when communicating with the doc this way? Have you ever sent a text to a doc only to have him/her say "I didn't get it"?

i've been doing this for a long time---i will never forget the day i learned to use a fax machine! i think my biggest concern is sending a text to a wrong number, with all my patient's information, which would result in a HIPAA violation.

Any comments, advice, thoughts?

[Mike A. Fungin RN]

Uh... wow.

[happy2learn]

Cell phone companies do not keep text messages themselves, so they wouldn't be able to pull it up and get patient information.

Texting isn't secure, that's the issue. I can understand to an extent if Blackberry email was used since that is secure. Blackberry emails are received similar and as quickly as texts, usually, but they are secure, which is why so many business people love them.

But there should be some policy. I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that if there was no policy to protect me.

We live in an ever changing technological environment.

[JenniferSews]

How is faxing secure and okay, but texting not? I'm just as likely to incorrectly dial a fax as a phone number. I'm asking because I have a Dr who insists that EVERY lab be called to them (in LTC) because they "can't trust us to know what's important." The same doctor is also furious that we call at all hours with "unimportant" lab results. We just discussed the issue again 2 days ago and the Dr repeated that we must call all results. It's a no win situation! The doc does not have a fax (is this the dark ages!?) so texting seemed like a nice neutral alternative for a minute there.

[inkydorei, LVN]

Thanks for all the replies. The only reason i heard about this is because i worked this past weekend. i normally only work mon-fri. The w/e nurses are apparently the ones who do this the most, but a brand new nurse (one month out of school) was telling me that he did it the other evening. i told him that as far as i know, he shouldn't be doing that. i only take telephone orders, or sometimes when we fax labs etc, a doc will fax back an order, but i transcribe that to our telephone order sheet, and clearly mark "via fax' and attach a copy of the dr's handwritten fax.

i will talk to my DON about this. She may not even be aware that it is happening. These nurses who don't want to pick up the phone and call the doc are setting us (the facility) up for some BIG problems.

thanks again for all the comments. :)

inky

[Dixiecup]

We had one doctor that didn't want to be called at all. He had a form made and we were to fax all problems or anything else. I can see faxing lab results but I don't like faxing pt problems when I need an answer NOW. He would always wait till the end of the day to fax back all his orders.