AS a Nurse, there are a few great things about computer charting. But remember it is the program that makes it or breaks it. It is the most time stealer of healthcare. We have to sign in and then sign in again. select the areas where we need to chart. each answer space has a list of possible anwers. But sometimes the answers are not there, then you have to go out and make a note. If the patient remembers something important before you leave the room, you must sign back in and sign back in againj, find her name, find the correct page by flipping thru screens, enter the info. sign out again and by then if it is change of shift only one Nurse can chart on that patient, even if the Nurse gojing off duty still has lots to chart because of ANYTHING, the computer wont let you til the other Nurse signs out. If I sound frustrated, it is only because I am counting down the days til my retirement. I loved taking care of people, not the computer programs that are written by morons who have not worked as Nurses on the floor.
Our government mandating electronic medical records forced small hospitals to have programs that will not interface with dr offices or even other hospitals. You still have to print the whole chart to transfer a patient. Heaven forbid if the patient needed to return the next day for a test, a Nurse has to do all the charting again from the beginning as the program wont remember any of the info!!!!!
Humans make mistakes. There are still med errors due to PEOPLE entering things wrong into the computers.
Today, I took care of a patient that needed test and monitoring done. Within 30 minutes it was done, BUT,, the registrar and not entered the patient into the system YET, and no charting could be done. So the computer charting keeps people in the hospital longer due to technichal difficulties. She needed to leave to go to another Dr for evaluation. What used to take 20 minutes at the most and that includes admission, Dr phone calls and orders, tests and discharge orders, NOW takes more than twice as long due to Computers.
