I am not Telepathic

Specialties Informatics

Published

I'm growing increasingly frustrated with user requests from people who have no clue as to what they want, let alone what needs to be done to get it.

As an example, I pull admissions by month for the DON. She's in a frenzy today because my (system-culled) numbers don't manage those she pulls from the log.

Well. I backed into her numbers perfectly after I asked her for copies of the detail from which she works. I actually had to explain to her, pointing to things like encounter numbers, that I needed to look at the records in the system to see how they differ from those in the log - some of which weren't even as she recorded them, but she knew that the patient erroneously marked as a d/c was admitted.

She is also insisting to be that the ex-HIM director always ran these from queries and I should get his. Uhm, I did that months ago, and no, they don't work. I don't care of you spoke to him this morning, I am quite certain that you didn't ask him about his AS/400 queries. Further, six months ago you told me that he never even got the numbers to you.

Please help. Before I became a nurse my background was heavily corporate, on Wall Street, first in sales and trading and later as a programmer, team lead, and systems analyst. I simply can't wrap my head around the utter lack of business sense, let alone basic business knowledge, in health care.

My infection control/utilixation review nurse needs me to help her tomorrow because she doesn't know how to add a column with totals to the annual spreadsheet I had to put together for her because she's still working on right-clicking to cut and paste.

Advice before my brains shoot out of my nose!

Thanks.

:banghead:

Up Vote Up Vote ×

A double mixed drink and four straight hours of mindless TV tonight?

Up Vote Up Vote ×
A double mixed drink and four straight hours of mindless TV tonight?

Heh.

I just don't know if I want to stay in informatics. I'm not viewed as a professional or nurse, but as soimeone who can fix the printer. And I don't get to do enough of what I like to be satisfied. I like data-diving and creating reports and actually USING the data in our EMR to improve patient care. I will never get a chance to do that here.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Blood Center Collections, Quality and Regulatory A.

Hey Sue -

I hear you = been there, done that - but frankly, some of my "business customers" weren't so knowledgeable about what they wanted either - that is what iteration is for... :coollook: Frustration to the max. Advice #1 Breathe! Advice #2 Don't give up the professional choices because of a few uneducated people - just work on educating them. Advice #3 Focus on the blessings and not on the problems. Try to go with the flow instead of bucking the process (oh wait that advice is for ME! lol). Most of all, look for the humor in the situation - perhaps your users are only one step up from the coffee holder (CD tray) and foot pedal (mouse) stage!

Best of luck! Good thing this forum is here for venting.....:yeah:

Sarah

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Most of all, look for the humor in the situation - perhaps your users are only one step up from the coffee holder (CD tray) and foot pedal (mouse) stage!

Best of luck! Good thing this forum is here for venting.....:yeah:

Sarah

HA! A lot of our problems are DEU - defective end user.

Thanks for the laugh!

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment