[Villages PL]

What's going on with the health alliance? No doubt you've heard about the health alliance between USF and the Villages. They say the purpose is to make Villagers healthier. But even before the first lecture was given, they started calling TV "America's Healthiest Hometown". If we're already America's healthiest hometown, I think we should call off the alliance and quit while we're ahead.

The biggest change the alliance wants to make is to eliminate medical records on paper. With this plan, your doctors will type everything about you into a computer. Then you and all of your doctors will have easy access to your records. I think we may be on to something. As a matter of fact, while we're at it, we should get a computer diagnosis and eliminate doctors too (I understand that software has already been designed for this purpose). So what if we occasionally get a wrong diagnosis. How would that be any different than what we're getting now?

The problem with the health-alliance project is that it has set its sights too low. We should aim to be The World's Healthiest Hometown! Being America's Healthiest Hometown is way too easy. But I suppose we're getting the best that federal grant money can buy.

I just thought I would break the ice with this post and see if anyone else has any comments on this subject.

Thank you.

[Trish Crocker]

There have been laws passed requiring doctors offices and hospitals to become paperless...this will prevent mistakes caused by sloppy penmanship and lost papers. There will also be cross checks in the computer systems that will check meds and the dosages. Although it's a pain to implement, in the long run it will be a good thing...as long as there are automatic back-ups in case of computer failure!

[whartonjelly]

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.

[ilovetv]

Originally Posted by whartonjelly

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.

This is exactly what is going on, and worse. And then there is the matter of being the patient in the hospital, after a major surgery or you're sicker than a dog, and when the nurse comes in, ALL her/his time is spent with eyeballs drilled into the computer screen on the counter in your patient room, and ALL their time goes into feeding that thing information in 20 different SLOW-MOVING screens, and for security, it logs her/him out and they have to start all over again. There's no time to even LOOK at the patient, much less talk with them and do bedside patient care.

[ilovetv]

This cancer patient-writer explains it perfectly:

...."So much of being a good doctor, from a patient’s perspective, is not only medical knowledge, which (rightly or wrongly) we typically take for granted, but also the ability to relate to us, to look at us and see if our truths are being expressed.

Trust is essential – after all, the physician is about to cut us open, amputate a body part, radiate us, poison us with chemicals, tell us if we are going to live or die. We need to know that this doctor is a person who will treat us with dignity, who will do the best professional job for us he is capable of. We need to know he takes our concerns and fears seriously. We want him to want us to live.

It’s very hard to gain that kind of information and learn to trust somebody with our well-being and our lives when all we see and hear is the back of a white coat and the click of a mouse."....

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/03/...rspective.html

[Mudder]

ilovetv, thanks for the link to that blog. Excellent article, expressed my feelings exactly. Social media can be a great tool but needs to be done the correct way. We, as patients, still need and deserve that face time. Wonder if USF will address that, I would hope so. Hope they don't get so bogged down in "fixing" us that we really don't know what or how they fixed us.

[JenAjd]

Up north the health-care folks I was plugged into were paperless. I found it to be very beneficial as it also had a "mychart" capability and I could e-mail my provider to ask questions etc. I never felt when I was "in office" that I was getting a less than perfect appointment. My providers always took their time one on one with me. This capability was also linked to the hospital, labs etc. so your info was all in one place. I wish that ALL the providers in TV had this capability to be linked together. Last Spring I had a medical emergency here in The Villages that took me first to Urgent Care, then the ER and ultimately to the hospital for surgery. I still had to give my history to each entity (while in extreme pain) which was VERY disconcerting to say the least. They may have had their "OWN" computer paperless capability but none seemed to be linked together.

[Doodlegirl]

It was during the Christmas-New Year's holiday,the MD was on vacation and being covered by one of six other physicians in the practice. An MRI
was ordered for a Saturday two weeks hence, and I called to ask the MRI
dept. if they could find some way to get him in earlier. Something was wrong, and he was unable to walk. They fit me in, called the covering doc and told him, and in we went in two days, by self pay ambulance since he couldn't walk and I couldn't carry him. His dx was cancer of the spinal fluid...and it
had obviously deteriorated the ability to balance. Talking with the radiologist
at the hospital it was suggested Hospice be called to which I agreed. My Dad
passed away ten days later at our home. The paperless Primary never called, it was only when I made an appointment in my father's name, two weeks after his passing that he learned of Dad's passing. I made the appointment because I wanted to point out the massive screw up between
the paperless physician, and the full of paper Hospice. The MD was shocked, I remember saying to him, "Hey, how come Dr. X didn't mention to you that
you had a patient going South?" I can still see the stunned eyes looking at me. I was not a happy camper. I made the doc show me the paperless note where it indicated Dad had been 'stumbling' and 'falling' for two months previously. I shook hands with him and left, he knew I knew the paperless
aspect had been a total failure. Physicians and nurses and computer tech's are only as good as the notes that are filed as quickly as possible in a patient's chart, and regardless of many of us with paperless pasts, the technology and the humanity have not yet caught up. IMHO My Dad's
physician was also my physician.

[swrinfla]

I am wholeheartedly supporting USF Healthcare's program here in The Villages.

Yes, everybody has a "horror" story about a loved one's treatment. And, I mean everybody. Those where the patient's records were totally electronic - that is, "paperless." Those where the patient's records were totally on paper!

My late wife's oncologist carried a 4" file with him on the last visit I witnessed. The hospital was mandating a switch to electronic records, and he absolutely hated everything about it! Upon reflection, I firmly believe that my wife's death may have been delayed considerably had her records been automated! No proof, of course, but gut reactions are often close to being truthful!

Whether I will personally benefit from USF's research remains uncertain. But, I am totally convinced that the association between USF and TV will, in the long run, benefit us all. I urge every Villager to participate as much as possible in USF's various research programs!

SWR

[newvillagegirl]

I am confused as to whether this new "plan" is only for those on Medicare. It is also important to work with some of the younger members of TV who also need reasonable coverage before reaching 65. Does anyone have information on this aspect?

Thanks