Does any living, breathing human believe that there is not
enough paperwork in our lives? While we
are all burdened, I believe that the medical profession is uniquely deluged
with an absurd volume of documentation requirements, most of which should be filed
under ‘N’ for nonsense. Ask any
physician or nurse about this and have antacids on hand as you will soon see
some sizzling smoke emerging from the medical professional’s nostrils.
Each hospitalized patient has a tremendous amount of
recorded data which nurses painstakingly document. This requirement fails on two fronts. It takes nurses away from time at the
bedside. Additionally, most of the stuff
they document is not viewed by physicians or others on the care team. For example, I rarely read the nurses’
notes. Is this because I do not value
the nurses’ opinions on my patients?
Hardly. Instead or perusing their
written descriptions of my patients’ progress, I use a sophisticated, high-tech
technique to obtain their input. I will
illustrate this below.
“How is my patient doing?”
Yes, I ask them directly.
I’ve been doing it this way for 25 years and I will continue to do
so.
This Nurse Pleads for Documenation Relief
Patients also are signing reams of mindless forms in
physicians’ offices and in hospitals at the time of admission. Hospitalized patients sign multiple forms
before they are taken to their wards, and often must sign additional forms
giving permission for blood transfusions and various diagnostic tests or
surgeries. How carefully do most
patients read this forms? About as
carefully as we read through a 10,000 word legal document when we are upgrading
software on our phone or computer prior to clicking on ‘I Agree’. Who has the time, interest or legal knowledge
to read through all of the stuff that we have to sign? I don’t.
A few days before writing this, a patient related an amusing
prank she perpetrated on her physician.
While in the waiting room, she was filling out a required form where she
would list the presence or absence of various medical symptoms. She found it annoying that her physician
requires that the same form be filled out prior to every visit. So, she wrote on the form that she had died
last week. Curiously, neither the
physician nor any of the staff asked the patient about this medical
development. Perhaps, they didn’t think
it was significant. You don’t think that
they simply didn’t read the form, do you?
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