Paper Work Sucks...how do I care about it?

[KalipsoRed]

So I'm working and it's not so bad as it once was....though 75% of the time I still wonder if I chose the right profession, but it is better. However I'm starting to feel like a crappy employee. I feel as though I truly do the best by my patients as I can with the very little time I have. However, paper work gets in the way and some times I find some of it a waste of time.

For instance, we do hourly comfort rounds. Which really consists of the RN writing her name on a sheet that is taped to the cabinet in the patient's room once an hour. While it seems not so bad, taking the time to write down the EXACT time, if the patient is pain free, if I helped them with elimination, what position they are in bed, and a short one word about what they are doing....it can take a good minute for each patient. I hate it so much that I would rather have them just sit a freaking video camera in the room and then they would know how often I was there. Furthermore most nurses, like my self, do not have the time to write all this crap either and therefore fill in huge chunks of the sheet at a time, which really defeats the purpose of the paper in the first place.

Much of our paper work is like this...and the online education! If no one is really going to do it, then it is ineffective. However my manager now wants to start writing people up for not doing comfort rounds. I just feel like our paper charting and computer charting system is so chopped up in the first place that every thing takes 10 more steps than it should if it were actually effective. This little face is excatly how I feel about all the paper work: Confused, overwhelmed, and a poor employee because I either forget about it when I'm suppose to use it, forget to do it, or stay 2 hours late trying to do some of it.

[locolorenzo22, BSN, RN]

I'm sorry about that. Our hourly round sheets just have initials and if pt is asleep/awake. Overall, it's much easier.

[Jules A, MSN]

To me paperwork is a necessary evil. It gets easier as time wears on. I think of it as an illustration of what I did all shift eg. what they are paying me for, passing along vital infomation to help my patient and very importantly covering my butt. :)