Generating Downtime Forms for Meditech

[imenid37]

Hello, and HELP!!!

I am trying to see what others have done to create downtime forms to use when our computer charting system, specifically Meditech, is offline. Have other users created forms from scratch. Is there a platform to use or a firm which will make these for you using your charting parameters? It just seems like quite a task to have end users make all of these forms from scratch. Are you simply using screen shots to build forms? Hopefully there is some very efficient process out there to do this which we, at my facility, do not know about. We have had Meditech for about 7 years. The "old" paper forms we used are out dated. Some are tri-folds and need to be ordered form outside companies, since they cannot be printed in our hospital on that type of paper. I hope someone can help me. Thanks so much!!!

[rninformatics, DNP, RN]

Since you are now creating down time forms that match your current Meditech screens and flow (instead of trying to make your pre-Meditech implementation paper documentation work as your downtime forms) I'd suggest using the forms builder in MS Word.

I'd also suggest posting to the meditech L listserve.

Good Luck!

[mydesygn]

Not sure if you are Magic or CS. Our hospital has been documenting in PCS on our inpatient units for about 7 years. Our policy states that the nurses document all meds / assessments in Meditech once the system is available. If we are done less than 6 hrs then the nrsg staff document in Meditech. If we are down more than 6 hours then the nursing staff can begin documenting on downtime forms. Our MAR is a scripted routine that prints an NPR report to the floors before all downtimes. for assesments, we print the assesment report from PCS dictionaries. There are "master" coipes of the most common assesments that are kept on the floor for the nurses to make multiple xerox for each patient prior to dowtimes. Most units have prepared downtime packets. However, most of our downtimes are less than 6 hours so about the only time nurses need document assessments on paper downtime forms are for version updates.

[didodeeRN]

I am interested to know what is your criteria of choosing 6 hours as parameter. We are on C/S platform and also on BMV - scanning.

Thanks,

Diana

[mydesygn]

The 6 hour parameter has existed prior to my employment. So I am not sure of the logic but what I think is ..

Our monthly scheduled downtimes start at 11pm with the expectation that we would have the system available by 4am. On average, it takes about 6hrs considering that we are not just taking Meditech code but also server patches and other system changes as well.

In addition shift change, occurs at 6:30 am, if we run past 4am and do not have Meditech is available. Beyond that time would not give clinical staff enough time to document before shift change. 4 am is a bit of hard time to allow the clinicians significant enough time to document.

We are in the process of implementing BMV however we have been on the EMAR for several years. Prior to each downtime, we print the current MAR for each patient. The nurses will typically document administrations in Meditech was the system is available however the documentation can remain on paper if downtime is more than 6 hrs.

[didodeeRN]

Could you share your downtime policy? You can send me e-mail privately. Thanks and appreciate it!

[didodeeRN]

I found an article that is a good resource regarding downtime.

Journal of Critical Care (2007) 22, 45–50

[HITgeek]

Several of my friends at different hospitals have recommended using electronic forms during MEDITECH downtime. They said that they've successfully registered patients using an e-forms management product from Access, and one also uses it for to access order sets during Meditech downtime.

[kim.maples]

We have Meditech and we did screen shots of all of our major assessments that are used. They are grouped into the SOC's that were created for each location and are accessible anytime the system is down. We also have "downtime bins" in each department that have a hard copy of our assessments, just in case the entire network is down. In those downtime bins, we have our old order sheets, progress notes, lab & rad requisitions available in case they are needed. Hope that helps - if you have any other Meditech questions don't hesitate to ask!

[jdp949net]

We have been using meditech at our facility for about 7 or 8 years as well. We have tried several different methods for downtime forms and are currenlty in the process of redesigning these now. We at one point did use screen shots of the interventions but went away from this method because we ran into issues with any interventions that had repeatable labels built into them. For instance a skin assessment on a screen shot would only have one occurance to add information, if more than one skin issue is noted multiple sheets would be needed to reflect this. We are now going to a Forms Printing Portal where all of our forms for the facility are loaded, including the downtime forms, and we are going through each intervention and designing from scratch a simplistic document that reflect all of the needed information. This is a long process but one we hope will make things easier in the case when we really have to use it for any extended period of time.

[DM74LA]

We are moving from Meditech to another vendor. But currently, our ICU and stepdown do paper charting. Not sure how similar your facilty is, but under the critical care section we print all our assessment forms and notes out on a daily basis. You could possibly do this in advance under "Print Forms Without Patients" just to have some generic charting material. Of course, nurses who computer chart would need to have some orientation to the paper forms, just like our critical care nurses need to be oriented to computer charting. Hope this helps.

DM74LA

Dustin