5 West Nursing

For you who have been to the Opus Clinical training class, you probably know what I’m talking about. I’m sure this much anticipated move from Noah’s Ark (paper doc) to the Space Shuttle (electronic doc) system of order entry and clinical documentation will bring in a new wave of mixed emotions when we go live around August the 5th or 15th (hmmm which one now?). I don’t know about you, but I feel like a kid in a candy store already!

Just imagine, those brand (spankin’) new, sleek and stylish laptop computers (one for each nurse on the unit I hope), together with their human counterpart, marching forward into the future of health care (at least for South Texas). We will have the privilege of using the Rolls Royce of electronic medical records… now that’s what you call “forward thinking”!

Will history repeat itself?

I remember early on, I spoke with someone about computerized documentation. She said, “Yes, we had that before, but it was too slow and nobody liked it so we switched back to the old paper/pen system”. (Talk about taking 1 step forward and 3 steps back.)

For whatever reason, we’re back to electronic documentation, and I’m sure this time, it will stay for good. Hopefully this new system will speed our delivery of health care, create more quality time with our patients, and make work more efficient. A pretty good return on investment taking into consideration that it will actually lessen our dependence on paper and printing, improve on illegibility, and significantly reduce operating cost, which is very good for our bottom line… and, as you know, the bigger, the better.

So, are you looking forward to this change, or would you rather have things stay the same. I’m all for it, how about you?