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Good pod cast.

What do you foresee happening in I.T. with the start of the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractors being put in place to recover over payments and identify under payments? Will hospital administrators put any sort of pressure on their I.T. groups to help track all questioned payments from a potential contractor that doesn’t know what they are doing? From the conference I listened to, hospitals are going to need fire power (data) if a lot of RAC’s turn out to be as incompetent as they are/were in New York and California. I really think there is potential for lawsuits if they are that bad.

Enjoy your podcast.
As a nurse for 18 years, I understand how nurses work. Nurses carry what is often referred to as “Brain sheets”. This is a extremely important to us. It is a piece of paper that each nurse sets up/arranges in their own (sometimes illogical) way, to tract the things that need to be done for each patient. When and what labs they might need, medication times, and specific care items that might need to be done. It is how we organize how shift. So until another mechanism is put in place that can help the nurse with this task, nurses will continue to carry these sheets of paper. My solution. An electronic gantt chart to be viewed on a pda. We spend a great deal of time trying to figure out how going to give all the meds that have to be given in the given time frame. A gantt chart could show what to run first, second, third etc, and what can run simultaneously. While this may seem easy enough, but evaluate and try to put into practice on a pediactric oncology or an ICU and one will see what I am talking about. Take a look at a nurses “Brain sheet” then look at strategies to get rid of the “double” documentation.
Secondly, the location of the location of the computers in some of the rooms. With the rooms cramped with pumps, poles, extra cot/chair for parents, it is often extremely difficult, if not, impossible, to get to the bedside computer to chart. And wheeling a cart with a computer on it, into an already, overcrowded room is a hassel. Believe me, I am all for getting rid of paper, and the software is there, but the big/bulky hardware is not. Small device that a nurse can strap to her arm, like quarterbacks cheat sheets, would be great. But we are not there yet. But look at the nurses “brain sheet” if you really want to understand what she needs or what she is doing. The nurses spend the first 30 minutes of their shift creating & organizing the information on it.