Verbal charting for nurses?

Let's face it... charting stinks. Sitting down and handwriting out things takes forever, and it's often the reason nurses stay past their shifts and gain overtime. How come nurses don't do verbal charting over the phone? Imagine how much time we would save! And as certain things pop up over the course of the day, we would just go back and add verbal entries. I wonder if something like this is realistic?

What a good idea. As technology improves this should be possible. Never thought of it myself. Two thumbs up to you.

I wish we could do like doctors with recording. Example.."Room 307 Ms Jones c/o pain 7/10, administered Morphine 4 mg IV..." Then it would be transcribed like the doctors do. I get sick of paper charting. It takes me FOREVER and I stress over it. Sometimes I will be almost done with my shift and still hadnt charted a word on any patient.

I've often wished we had a little hand held recorder we could use to tape assessments while we were doing them. "Lungs are clear in all fields, no cough, no SOB, etc" The minute you leave the room your charting would be complete. Plus, this would create jobs because somebody would have to type up all this stuff. :)

I like the idea of having our notes transcribed. However, there is a new policy (?federal) that in 2009 all charting will be done electronically. I work at a hospital where this has been done for a while. You would think click here, click there, enter a few words would be efficient. It is not. You have to enter data on several screens, multiple times. Nurses still don't get out on time due to documentation.:typing

I've often wished we had a little hand held recorder we could use to tape assessments while we were doing them. "Lungs are clear in all fields, no cough, no SOB, etc" The minute you leave the room your charting would be complete. Plus, this would create jobs because somebody would have to type up all this stuff. :)

They already exist and are already overworked.

I see enough mistaken notes in typed transcription to be leery of it. Anything you transcribe, you also have to proofread the results after it's done, so there is extra time there, too. Sounds like a good idea, but in theory, I don't think it would save time....

All of our charting, except traumas, are done electronically on the EHR. The program we have is very user friendly and once you get used to it is a breeze to use. We have alot of check boxes to click but also comment boxes to put in our notes to customize it for our individual pts. It's the handwritten trauma notes I still freak about. But it is rumored we are getting a friendlier trauma flow sheet, hope it helps!