Documenting your life away

[nursingaround1]

Just wondering how much documentation is taking nurses and doctors away from patients.

I ask this because I was talking to a friend back home in NZ about the good old days when we worked there together (over 20yrs now) and I naievely suggested it would be nice to work there again.

She said I wouldn't like it, as it's no longer a nice, even fun place to work. She said she spends 20 mins out of every hour on the computer, and everything is documented, because if it isn't then it didn't happen.

She also said they're keeping patients with no quality of life alive longer, and the ward is full of category D (full dependence) patients.

I remember at the end of the day, spending 10-15 mins doing the documenting, and that was it. But we spent all our time with the patients, from meds, dressings, cleaning, turning, feeding. We did it all.

Do RN's still do much of the basics now days. Am curious.

[MidLifeRN2012]

She's right. It's all about the paperwork. I'm in psych and I had a patient who was especially needy and demanding. While I gave him a bit of 1 to 1 attention because he was crying and tearful and it calmed him down by talking to him, I kept one eye on my watch with the knowledge that he was putting me behind with my charting and it was nearing the end of the shift. OT is frowned upon unless they need you. Wish my mind could have been fully engaged on the patient.

Tempted to go back to the 9-5 office environment I came from. Holidays and weekends back and less narrative paperwork

[coloradoRN94]

when I started nursing school in 2016, the biggest shock to me was how much we have to document! we are essentially glorified scribes! In school they teach us that if you don't document it, it doesn't happen. Documenting is used to "save our butts." Kinda makes you think why our butts even need saving in the first place..

[Davey Do]

Documenting is used to "save our butts." Kinda makes you think why our butts even need saving in the first place..

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[Jedrnurse, BSN, RN]

It makes me chuckle when people bust out the axiom "if it wasn't charted, it wasn't done." Because I've been around enough to know that "just because it was charted doesn't mean it was done..."