There is always a COMPUTER between me and my patient. We are required to scan meds to patient bracelets, enter admission and assessment date into the COMPUTER , text doctors and other departments from the COMPUTER.
I am looking @ the almighty COMPUTER much more than my patient. A major facility I worked for mandated that during the lengthy admission documentation, nurses ASK the patient if it was all right if they looked at the COMPUTER during the process!
They were, of course , aware that we must look at the COMPUTER more than the patient. The solution was to ask the patient for permission??? I feel typing is more valued than any people/ assessment skills I may have developed over the years. Data entry is the name of the game now.
I would so much prefer touching my patients than that damn COMPUTER!
Same here. I love the EMR system. When our network is down and I have to use the paper charts, I feel like I'm in the stone age. But then again, I'm pretty computer saavy, so I get that some people aren't.
I guess you are sort of right ... if we were not charting on the computer we would be writing our assessment (same difference). I guess because some of us despise using the computer it actually seems more time consuming. As they say "six of one and half-a-dozen of the other." Yiggs
a young, new nurse here, in the ICU, I much prefer the computer charting but I imagine that's because I have grown up with computers, unfortunately when we have down time and have to resort to paper charting for a shift, that is when I get really behind and need to look to the older, experienced nurses for help with it, I think I would have a really hard time ever working somewhere with only paper charting.
You don't have to be a slave to the computer. I hate addressing a patient while typing on the keyboard.
I take care of my assessments and all the interpersonal stuff while @ the bedside. I do all my charting about the encounter/interaction outside @ the nurses station.
Speaking for myself and facility, in the olden days our assessments were done on a double faced form, a new one each 24 hours with check boxes and a narrative note, a graphic page for I and O and vital signs (room for 5 days I think) and an IV site assessment form that we kept in the room.
Now I chart on a minimum of 11 computer screens (usually 13 or 14), plus a paper care plan per patient, per shift. I estimate that it takes me double the amount of time to document as it does to do an assessment and perform nursing interventions, if not more.
Old way: assess IV site, and check WNL box on IV site form date,time,initial.
New way: assess IV site, sign on to computer, choose patient, choose screen, choose site, choose column, choose degree of infiltrate, choose degree of inflammation, choose WNL, save, exit.
I feel like I spend more time nursing the computer than the patient.
The hospital I work at recently implemented computer charting and it is HORRIBLE! I am young and grew up using computers all the time and I still cannot believe how horrible this program is. It is super slow, time consuming and takes away from patient care. I hope they trash this program and get something else, but I doubt it since the hospital administrators are only concerned about saving money.
It really does depend on the software and hardware that are provided. some require that you take the hardware with you into the patiewnt room and this time consuming and awkward.
We use a really antiquated soft ware system, but at least we don't have to lug hardware around as some nurses do.
Speaking for myself and facility, in the olden days our assessments were done on a double faced form, a new one each 24 hours with check boxes and a narrative note, a graphic page for I and O and vital signs (room for 5 days I think) and an IV site assessment form that we kept in the room.
Now I chart on a minimum of 11 computer screens (usually 13 or 14), plus a paper care plan per patient, per shift. I estimate that it takes me double the amount of time to document as it does to do an assessment and perform nursing interventions, if not more.
Old way: assess IV site, and check WNL box on IV site form date,time,initial.
New way: assess IV site, sign on to computer, choose patient, choose screen, choose site, choose column, choose degree of infiltrate, choose degree of inflammation, choose WNL, save, exit.
I feel like I spend more time nursing the computer than the patient.
Ditto, ditto, ditto! You said it all.
Our admission form alone must have 11 computer screen pages. It's completely out of hand, to the point that a former nurse manager put computer charting Number One on a priority list of our duties. Sorry, sister, I am way too old to make the computer my number one priority. Just ain't gonna happen:mad:
3 babies x 4 assessments x 10 minutes = 120 minutes + 15 minutes for notes = Just over 2 hours out of my 12 hour day...
Done paper charting doing agency work and it takes me twice as long, grrrrr. Typing is SO much faster!
I can see that as being a plus in your setting. But those babies don't have 20-80 years of history to record every time they are admitted. You would easily spend that much time on EACH patient with the admission and charting on adults.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
hopefully your unit will come up with a better solution to work for your nurses. seems like your having to do the work twice which is taking even more time away
when we switched to a different computer charting system a year ago, nurses were told that "the system isn't designed to make nurses' jobs any easier." it really isn't, but somehow it surprised me that they didn't even pay lip service to how wonderful it would be for us. instead, they forced us into a huge change, knowing it would make our jobs much more difficult than they needed to be -- because the hospital bought the charting system and then had to force it to work. asked why they didn't consult nursing staff before they bought it, they said they bought it to make it easier for researchers to pull data out of the charts.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
umm.. i guess i don't understand it. what does computer documentation have to do with patient contact/touch? if it wasn't computer, it would be a paper that you are looking more than the patient. you need to distinguish patient contact from documentation. we don't touch the patient and document at the same time any way, no matter what type documentation we're using.
believe it or not, paper documentation takes less time. especially for those who grew up before computers and never learned to type. dh keeps switching jobs to avoid computer charting -- i hope we can retire before it catches up to him!
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Yiggs
76 Posts
I guess you are sort of right ... if we were not charting on the computer we would be writing our assessment (same difference). I guess because some of us despise using the computer it actually seems more time consuming. As they say "six of one and half-a-dozen of the other." Yiggs