How have you handled computerized charting?

[golondrina]

Hello fellow teachers,

I am currently teaching clinicals in an ADN program. Our primary clinical site has just gone live with their computerized charting system. I am curious to know how some of you have handled this. Have your students been given their own user ID codes in order to access the electronic medical record? Or is the clinical instructor the only one given a code? How have you handled having students prep the day before the clinical experience? How do they access information from the chart?

I have a meeting at the hospital in a couple of weeks with our liason. I want to come prepared with some ideas. Any help with this is appreciated.

Thanks-

g

[BigBadInstructor]

Our students have been using computerized documention for several years in acute care, and now several of our long term care facilities are going online. At each facility our students are given logons and passwords which are strictly theirs, which means the facility can track which charts they are accessing. Most of the patients charts are also paper, so students can look at both. The facility education department will give classes for students concerning how to access documentation, which screens they are responsible for, MARs, careplans, etc. I also have a faculty who will give these classes also. It really is necessary that your faculty knows the computerized charting, because they will need to help students. Students also can go back to the education department for remediation as required. It is amazing how fast students pick up this documentation system. Our faculty also get their own logons and passwords, so they can go in and look at the students charting. If they are working at the same facility, you must make sure they use their faculty logon and not their working logon. Remember everything is trackable now.

Our students can go into the facility, access a computer, and do their prep prior to coming to clinical. A problem has always been the number of computers available on the unit. And the time of day students come up. You will find this is your biggest problem, getting students access to unit computers. Some facilities will designate one or two computers for your students, which is no problem if you only have one or two students, but try having 5 - 6 and things back up.

The best advice would be for faculty to learn the system, see what students will need, and go from there. We are finding that some computer documentation systems have "canned text", which greatly diminished student narrative charting. We always negotiate that students will not do "canned text", but see what works for you.

Good luck. It truly is a learning experience, especially with upgrades!