Policy on WOWs

Nurses General Nursing

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We are switching over to eMARS with WOWs (workstation on wheels). Policy is to take the workstation in the room to give meds. Then wheel it to the next room. Problem: We get a a lot of patients from a local nursing home that come in with MRSA, VRE, C-diff, and baumanii. I can see this stuff spreading from patient to patient with this policy.

What is the policy in your facility?

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

YOu mean the vendor did not provide an inservice on this???? Someone (Educator?) needs to contact the vendor to find out what solutions can be used on the equipment, if there are special covers that need to ordered, etc. If the Educator does not know the rep call Materiels Management or whoever takes care of shipping and receiving. They will have a purchase order or invoice and you can call to locate the rep.

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Our laptops on wheels used to do all nursing documentation go into these rooms and back out on to the next without special covers and/or cleaning. Practice standard precautions and you should not have a problem. We have not any hospital acquired mrsa or vre since the start of computer documentation aprox 9 years ago.

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Specializes in Cardiac step down unit.

We call them COWs (computer on wheels). We don't take them into isolation rooms.

Kelly

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We use to call them COWs, but a patient's family overheard one of the nurses upset that her COW was not in the room. (where the nurse just left it for a minute to get something) and the patient's family thought they were talking about their mother who was overweight. (patient was in the hallway bathroom). Now we have to call them WOWs....:lol2:

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Specializes in Pysch, Corrections, MedSurg.

@ 2nd careerchange - hmmm...I wonder if you work at the same facility that I do. :)

We use to call them COWS but a nurse asked another nurse where the COW was and the patient thought that the nurse was referring to her. I think she wanted to sue so now they make us call it a WOW...even though on my floor, some of the nurses will still say COWS.

Anyhow...to the OP. We have a posting listed in our med room, showing us how to clean and disinfect the WOWS.

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Specializes in Family Practice, Mental Health.

I work in the ICU. As such, we have huge glass double doors which allows the nursing staff to park the COW WOW's so that they do not actually enter the room. Each unit has drawers below the keyboard, and a large table which works very well to hold dispensed meds, IV piggy backs, syringes, papers and you name it. Very nice set up.

As an aside, I found this prior AllNurses article very entertaining. However, I have never been able to find a record of any legal action taken in regards to the "COW" name of the workstations.

https://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/name-computer-wheels-339011.html

I found humor in this article : http://www.leanhealthcareexchange.com/?p=748

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The WOWs must be brought up to the pt's doorway to verify meds and such, but I've only seen it brought into the room on a limited basis. It is policy to bring it in the room but very few do that for the reasons you mentioned. Of course a pt on precautions does not have the WOW brought in at all, just up to the doorway.

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@ 2nd careerchange - hmmm...I wonder if you work at the same facility that I do. :)

We use to call them COWS but a nurse asked another nurse where the COW was and the patient thought that the nurse was referring to her. I think she wanted to sue so now they make us call it a WOW...even though on my floor, some of the nurses will still say COWS.

Anyhow...to the OP. We have a posting listed in our med room, showing us how to clean and disinfect the WOWS.

If the wand cord is long enough, you can leave the unit at the door and just have to clean the wand afterwards.

HOWEVER, the geniuses that build these things never seem to take this into account; just like the other 1200 inconviences built into the programs on these units. Not to mention the fact that 120lb nurses are expected to push these 300lb monsters around all day long.

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Specializes in Utilization Management.

We use WOWs for when giving meds, but ours also come in a handheld version for isolation rooms. We just stick the handheld in a bag and use a thermometer probe cover as a "stylus".

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We use WOWs for when giving meds but ours also come in a handheld version for isolation rooms. We just stick the handheld in a bag and use a thermometer probe cover as a "stylus".[/quote']

Yeah, we were supposed to get those as well, haha. If the PTB had just done as they should have and installed terminals in the rooms like every OTHER hospital in this area; but NOOO. Our handhelds barely work as is, stick them in a bag and you would be charting "no scan" all day long.

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We call them COWs (computer on wheels). We don't take them into isolation rooms.

Kelly

I'm with you, why would anyone drag a wow or cow into an isolation room or one with a pt who has mrsa or any other easily spread infection? I would just scan something else with the pt's barcode. There has to be exceptions to situations like that, policy should allow for not bringing computers into the rooms.

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