Memo: As of Friday May 16th we will no longer have internet access on the medical floors.
That is what I was greeted with yesterday. Now I am not a huge internet user but when the night is slow and the unit is clean and the patients are sleeping and the ordering is complete and my charting is done, I have been known to log onto allnures or my bank, or my email.
Now I have used the internet to look up diagnosis and print them off for patients, I have also printed off what a heart cath is and what to expect for patients families. I have logged onto Yahoo Maps and printed off point to point directions from our hospital to the hospital your husband is being transfered to.
My thought at 1st was to take these job related internet uses to my Admin, but by a simple search of my user name they would see that I visit emedicine about 5 times last compared to the 25 chocolate martini recipes I looked up the other night!!!
So my thought is ok, go with it, when the Doc wants me to print off something from emedicine and I tell him I cant, OK, when I need point to point directions from our hosptial to another I will just call our DON and ask her to fax them up to me. I think that may be my plan, just keep calling admin for faxes of information they can pull up on the internet.
Just venting here----so do any of you not have internet use at your hospital?? I just cant get the thought out of my head of they are throwing baby out with the bathwater!!
Unfortunately, internet access usually get abused by a goodly percentage in the workplace, thus ruining it for legitimate users. I'm afraid I side with banning it for those reasons.
i just use google as a home search page. we don't default to a specific search engine and google is fast and pretty efficient. In any case I'm pretty familiar with which sites are reputable (all those resarch papers from school).
Part of our training involves being able to recognize what's legitimate and what isn't. Nursing asks us to look up drug information all the time, and if it's for a patient, I'm always happy to print it out and send it to the floor. For that, we usually use drug websites for the layperson.
Blockers can do weird things, however. Yet another pharmacist I work with put a blocker on her home computer, and one day she wanted to do an online CE and couldn't because the Pharmacy Times website was about drugs.
Bottom line the computer is the Hospital's property they can determine how and by whom it is uses. Period.
Get a tablet. I bought mine from verizon online for 129.00. It is refurbished has epocrates, medical info and I love it. The best part is that no one can track my usuage. Everyone who has seen mine bought one.
Specializes in Certified Med/Surg tele, and other stuff.
May I please offer another perspective on this. From an employer perspective. Not to discount the posters thoughts or feelings or perspective. Not for one minute. I just would like to offer this for consideration, if I may:
I think the using of the internet by employees for personal reasons is a bit like using the phones for personal reasons.
Those communication tools are there for work related purposes.
Paid for by the employer.
The employee is there for work, not for any other reason.
Employees are paid to do the job they're hired to do.
I don't know of any job description which includes time out for personal use of the communication tools in the workplace, apart from in an emergency of course. Paid for by the employer.
Specializes in Certified Med/Surg tele, and other stuff.
I'm praying ours is taken away from most everyone. The only people that need it on our floor is the charge nurse who does admits/discharges and education and the secretary. Nobody else needs to be on it at work...EVER.
I sit at the computer most of the day, as it's my job. However, I don't even look at my work email because if I have time to do that, I can be out on the floor helping out. To sit and surf facebook or Gmail? OMG?? REALLY????? If I need to check my bank acct, I do so on my break and on my phone.
People aren't getting the care they deserve and are paying for because the nurses AND nurses aides sit on the internet when they should be in the rooms!
Our nurse manager has set up a nice desk in the breakroom complete with a desktop, speakers and a comfy chair for those on break to use.
I'll be one very happy girl when the powers that be crack down on the abusers and take away the internet.
Specializes in Certified Med/Surg tele, and other stuff.
As a student, the last unit that I was on in a VERY BIG city hospital was filled with nurses and techs who spent a lot of time online (shopping at Target for Christmas gifts, playing games, pricing new cars, just to name a few).
One patient's daughter walked to the desk because her mom's call light was being ignored and wanted to know why.....and then I guess caught a glimpse of the Target website up and visible for all to see. She didn't do anything at that time, but apparently she went all the way up the chain of command in the hospital....and eventually 2 nurses & 2 techs lost their jobs. I don't think they lost their jobs for just that particular occurrence, but they pulled logs of internet activity and tracked their time online.
I am not a techie person so I don't know how this could have been tracked, but I do know that 4 people lost their job because when they should have been providing patient care they were surfing the web (with a lot of documentation logged on their internet use).
Specializes in Certified Med/Surg tele, and other stuff.
I'm a new grad and I have been on he internet twice now at work because i needed a quick brush up on a medical condition or a medication while I was on the computer charting. Didn't want to have to log off and get up and go search for a reference book and flip through it. It took maybe 5 secs to access a site for more info on treatment of DVT and cellulitis and a quick review of arixtra and which clotting pathway it interupts. I don't think the internet should be taken away from us. I see many others surfing constantly, however all of these people are able to get quality work done in a timely manner and are good at what they do. I am new and this isn't the case for me (yet). So in my "down time" I peruse my standing oirders and protocols and try to get familiar with policies etc... But medical websites are invaluable and should not be blocked.
Are they really good at what they do, or is there more they could do?
Our facilities do not pay us to cruise the internet for non work related material!
How can we ever, as a profession, ask for a lower nurse/pt ratio, ask for more money and then be found cruising the internet, KWIM?
To bad they can't put a meter on the computers. I bet if a nurse had to 'clock out' to surf, she wouldn't be doing it at work!
It's usually a few who wreck it for the majority. I would be ticked off to have no access to the Internet because someone couldn't go without Facebook for a few hours.
We have computer links to places like the CDC and other sites, but I have also looked up new meds (to recent to be in the drug books) when the pharmacist was busy and a rare blood disease that one of the moms had, among other things.
It's risky enough to check your bank balance, but the lamest thing I ever saw was someone applying for a job at one facility while working at another. Didn't appear to backfire that time, but not smart.
I use it for directions for patients/families, print menus for them also and staff, look up phone numbers, drugs, diagnosis. I think it's a useful tool and shouldn't be abused. Frankly - no one should ever ignore a call bell for any reason. Even personal conversations - which I've seen too often.
I have my iPhone for internet use if I need it regardless - love it!
My 2 brothers own a very busy $2 mill business, but only one of my brothers runs it. He hires and fires. He says to his employees: if I catch you using iPads, internet or any other electronic devices whatsoever - barring an emergency - you get the sack. He verbally warns them and they also sign it in their contract. One young guy would NOT stay off the net, and my brother actually warned him a few times as he was young. This young bloke was always late cos - you guessed it - he couldn't stay off his laptop before coming to work, staying up too late, etc. So he got fired then tried to take my brother to court and trashed his name around town. He didn't get anywhere with that tactic.
As my brother says: you are here in a business TO WORK. He is not paying people to slack off on his time.
The employer can bar certain sites like hotmail etc so you can't look it up, and the net will only hit on the sites approved by the employer.
I have never, ever worked in a hospital where it was slack and I have worked in hospitals now for about 27 years. I've never had the TIME to surf the net at work. And you really shouldn't be anyway.
If I was an employer, you would get one warning, then the sack. It really isn't your business to be accessing their computer sites for your personal use. I personally think it is an abuse of your employment. There is ALWAYS something to do at work besides sit and surf the internet. It really annoys me when I see people sitting and laughing over something on their email - when I'm running round like a headless chook. I often wonder today if that's how shallow our workers are today. Instead of surfing the net, ask the other nurses are you busy? Is there anything I can do to help?
Ask the employer to let you access sites for maps and other things but that should be it.
:yeah:
FireStarterRN, BSN, RN
3,824 Posts
Unfortunately, internet access usually get abused by a goodly percentage in the workplace, thus ruining it for legitimate users. I'm afraid I side with banning it for those reasons.