I work with nurses every day. Anyone who doesn’t realize how hard these
professionals work, has never been in a hospital. Their job descriptions have expanded along
with their work load. This is not your
father’s hospital ward. Hospitalized
patients today are older and sicker than ever before. It takes a seasoned nursing professional to
manage the care of these complex patients.
Their work days are full simply managing the expected tasks of
dispensing medications, coordinating diagnostic tests and assessing their
patients. There is no time scheduled for
unexpected events, which are expected as sick people’s conditions may change at
any moment. In other words, if a nurse
must attend immediately to a patient with chest pain, then his or her other more
mundane tasks are delayed or shifted over to another busy nurse.
I believe that the most potent barrier that is separating
nurses from their patients today is the ferocious documentation mandates that nurses are required to
perform. The hospital corridors are
clogged with nurses hovering over computers entering all kinds of data, most of
which will never be viewed by physicians.
These nurses are not techies who want to be palpating a keyboard. They are compassionate caregivers who want to
be in their patients’ rooms caring for them.
Tomorrow's Nurse?
If you suspect that I am exaggerating here, then go ask a
nurse.
Moreover, the hospital’s electronic medical record system
has become deeply layered and complex. Often I can’t find the specific data I
need. Just last week, a couple of senior
nurses and I were scouring through the computer to find a patient’s result of
stool testing for blood. We simply
couldn’t find it, and these nurses are pros.
At that point we were left with the following options:
- Reorder the test
- Make up the result
- Quit the profession and become an Uber driver
- Ask the patient what the result was
- Hire a 12-year-old who could find the results in a few seconds.
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