eMAR & quick patient info at bedside

[deweydecimal13501]

Hello,

I am posting this for one of the nurse educators at my hospital. Her question is below:

She is looking for information on how information about patients is communicated when you have an eMAR (electronic medication administration record). In the past you relied on bedside clipboards/charts to get quick info on the patient (ie., diet restrictions, activity instructions, code status, etc.). Now its all in the computer BUT if you are helping out a patient at the bedside, there is no quick reference tool. Current we use a lot of colored bracelets and signs. Its not ideal.

What are other people using and doing? What is out there?

Thank-you so much in advance for any advice or answers,

Halyna

Halyna Liszczynskyj, MLS

Director of Library Services

St. Elizabeth Medical Center

Utica, NY 13501

[DYLANB]

In the hospital I work for, we have a "paper lite" chart and a CPOE (computerized provider order entry) system in which all orders and medications for the patients are entered and viewed. We have to open an icon on the desktop, log in and this gives us access to the pts entire chart. We have computers in all of the pt rooms so we are able to view the pts chart from CPOE while in the room with the pt. We also have what we call a bedside chart which contains the pts flowsheet for I/O's and vitals. We use communication boreds (dry erase) in the pt rooms that list the pts MD's, diet, activity status, pain level and notes pertinent to the pts care. We switched over to this system about two years ago and initially I was heistant for the same reason you stated, it doesn't seem ideal. I feel like a slave to the computer. But now I perfer this method to the old paper chart. No more trying to guess what the chicken scratch order the MD left says, or flipping through pages and pages of orders. It is all now at the click of a button. Hope this helps.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

Fail risk, level of assist needed, pain med schedule and diet are on the white board in the room.

[firstinfamily, RN]

Our CNA's documented on a separate program from the nurses. There was an electronic kardex that listed the transfer status of the pt, if they had dentures, glasses etc. The aides passed this info on during shift report. As nurses we had a shift report using a unit paper report sheet(hard copy) If we had questions about meds we just brought up the electronic mediation record. WE also had a partial paper chart, we were using paper and computer systems. This did seem to double the amount of documentation we were doing!!

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Moved to Nursing Informatics forum for sage member advice.

:)