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!
Also just noticed (if it matters in the flow of the replies) that tntrn posted just before I did- if your reply was just to mine, that doesn't matter, but didn't know if you thought it was still tntrn.... just curious. Our user names are so similar.
And some of the experiences you relate are similar to mine as well. When I first started nursing (passed my State Board Exams, for which we sat for 2 days taking an actual pen and paper test, then waitied 6 weeks for results) there were the following papers in the chart to use: Doctor's Orders/Medicines and IV's/Nurse's Notes or Progress Notes/Graphics for vital signs, I and O and that's about it. Other sections were there for Lab values and such, but all we had to do was put them in the chart and look at them to see if the doc needed to be called immediately.
Our labor progression was marked on a graph across the top of our Nurse's Notes, so no need for a separate page (like on the computer) for vag exams.
In addition, I would like to say that the computers in our labor rooms are placed on a cart that also accommodates the fetal monitoring hardware. Therefore the neither the computer screen of the keyboard can be moved up or down to make it comfortable for the very tall or the short nurses. Just the ones who fit that height can really use it without cranking their heads way back to see (and that is even worse if you wear bifocals let me tell you) or way down, depending on one's height. OSHA would probably have a conniption.
As for having the paper chart between the nurse and the patient, I think it is much easier to have a face to face interaction with a paper chart. I often copy off the admission form and then sit facing my patient and have a admission interview or conversation and later I will go to input into the computer. None of the computers at our place allow you to be face to face with the patient. You are face to face with the computer and must turn to see the patient. Yes, this is very impersonal and perhaps part of why it takes me so long to do an admission is that I try to make this more personal by making eye contact with my patients with each page and each question. It's something we learned in nursing school way back in the 70's (and for some of us before that). It's something that is being bred out of nursing because everything is so focused on the technology. There's just no substitute for good old TLC.
Yes it does. My password is 9 characters long, and we have to change it every 90 days or so.
Let's say you have a pat who is on multiple meds. You cannot enter all the meds given and and get away with one password entry. You have to use your password on EVERY med entry.
tntrn, ASN, RN
1,340 Posts
And some of the experiences you relate are similar to mine as well. When I first started nursing (passed my State Board Exams, for which we sat for 2 days taking an actual pen and paper test, then waitied 6 weeks for results) there were the following papers in the chart to use: Doctor's Orders/Medicines and IV's/Nurse's Notes or Progress Notes/Graphics for vital signs, I and O and that's about it. Other sections were there for Lab values and such, but all we had to do was put them in the chart and look at them to see if the doc needed to be called immediately.
Our labor progression was marked on a graph across the top of our Nurse's Notes, so no need for a separate page (like on the computer) for vag exams.
In addition, I would like to say that the computers in our labor rooms are placed on a cart that also accommodates the fetal monitoring hardware. Therefore the neither the computer screen of the keyboard can be moved up or down to make it comfortable for the very tall or the short nurses. Just the ones who fit that height can really use it without cranking their heads way back to see (and that is even worse if you wear bifocals let me tell you) or way down, depending on one's height. OSHA would probably have a conniption.
As for having the paper chart between the nurse and the patient, I think it is much easier to have a face to face interaction with a paper chart. I often copy off the admission form and then sit facing my patient and have a admission interview or conversation and later I will go to input into the computer. None of the computers at our place allow you to be face to face with the patient. You are face to face with the computer and must turn to see the patient. Yes, this is very impersonal and perhaps part of why it takes me so long to do an admission is that I try to make this more personal by making eye contact with my patients with each page and each question. It's something we learned in nursing school way back in the 70's (and for some of us before that). It's something that is being bred out of nursing because everything is so focused on the technology. There's just no substitute for good old TLC.