Preference Cards

[U12beme]

What you think about your hospital's Preference Cards... I kindof want to do a short Venting Session... At the small rural hospital I work at... the PI aint worth a poo... They are severly out dated, and not too mention set you up for failure and/or a good butt chewing by the MD... B/c you open too many or too less for the case... So you have to do trial and error... So the tech open the bare min... and I'm up 99% running around central getting stuff... thus, my charting gets little attention... So you think why don't you keep a log and update them... Well I try, but instead of deleting the old and adding the new... We get all old and all new...

So anyways reason why I'm venting is because the other day... Our fax received a PI from another hospital that our company owns in maryland... And this PI was Awesome... It had everything on it... And even Notes... like positioning of equipment, pt positioning, drugs and mixtures, etc... detailed too... I guess I'm just going to have to take it upon myself to make my own PI solution...

But, I rather not... because My duration at this hospital is a bit more than a yr... I'm just flustered...:angryfire

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

We have a bin for people to put updated preference cards in, and a person designated from each specialty responsible for putting in the changes. We use a software program that we print a card for each surgery. They also have notes for positioning, meds, equipment, and little tidbits (such as Dr. A like the monitors for laparoscopic cases in a different position than every other surgeon or Dr. B uses odd ESU settings).

[BethCNOR, BSN, RN]

I've been in the OR for almost 30 years and preference cards have always been a sore spot. The nurses where I work make changes to the preference cards and the team coordinators and a few designated people (I am one) make the changes to the cards. The catch in our computer system is if the case has already been scheduled it will still get the "old" card. The updated card won't show up until a case posted after the changes have been made to the card. It's frustrating. I get a lot of cards to be updated with the same changes I have previously made. It's just because the case was scheduled first.

How does the saying go? If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. I wish you luck with the formidable task you have decided to tackle.

[U12beme]

Thanks for the Reply's...