Electronic Charting - Anyone have it?

[US RN in Oz]

Hi All,

I've been working in Victoria for six months now after immigrating from America. Since I go through an agency, I've worked at a dozen or so different hospitals doing mostly general med/surg nursing. The biggest difference I've noticed so far is the almost complete absence of electronic charting.

A couple places I've worked here use electronic charts for meds and I hear that in certain departments, such as ED's, use computers to chart. This is quite perplexing to me, especially in larger institutions,but that's not why I write.

I was curious about the other states and territories. Do any of them utilize modern technology for medical records, charting, med administration, communication and so on?

I've seen PowerChart being used at some larger hospitals by physicians. It seems like mainly for reports and stuff. It makes me drool. It's one of the very few things I genuinely miss. It also makes me more confused as to why these hospitals have PowerChart but don't even use it to anywhere near it's full potential.

What the story, morning glory?

[K+MgSO4, BSN]

Public hospital funding. The powers that be in state government can't see the fact that spending money on the EMR would make savings. There is also the fact that most hospital IT systems are old and underfunded.

The Royal Children has just implemented Epic and the Austin is implementing Cerner in a very slow method and are currently in a hybrid system. The Epworth Geelong (private hospital) I believe have an EMR.

Fiona Stanley in Perth is a new hospital that was supposed to be paperless and failed.

[Cmd123, ADN, BSN, RN]

OMG IM SO HAPPY I FOUND THIS POST!!!

Ive been in Aus for 1.5 years and after AHPRA lost all my paperwork, I’m finally registered and working now! Woo!

im in Perth and literally NO hospitals use EMR like we do back home. I’m devastated. I don’t feel safe, I feel as nurses how the hell do we have time to search for the paper chart if it can be found before someone calls, then how do we decipher the writing of the drs (& some nurses), and do this for 4-6 pts each? And although I like team nursing, I don’t like that one of us will be told something and the other might forget it. It’s just too complicated here and I’m desperately missing nursing back home. My quality of life is better but my type A nursing personality is quite sad.

Have you gotten used to it all yet?

[K+MgSO4, BSN]

Since that post a number of hospitals in Melbourne have EMR or are in the process of implementing them. EMRs were initially introduced as a financial measure in the US and the Australian funding system is completely different so there has been less of a pish but it is happening now.

Truly paper will not kill you in the meantime. You just need to get your rhythm going.

[Tenebrae, BSN, RN]

We use ecase at work. It drives me mad, its like the powers that be just installed it straight out of the box without bothering to tailor it to our individual needs