More Text Entry Than Medical Care

12/12/08 - WhiteCoatRants by WhiteCoat
Safety at It's Finest

[edited] The time spent on direct patient care in the recovery room was roughly 10 minutes. The time spent doing computer data entry was about 40 minutes.

I have no beef with the nurses. They were competent and caring. I have no beef about recording data about the surgery and the recovery process. That is a necessary part of medical care. But, there is a problem when health care providers are forced to record so much superfluous information for a simple surgery, that four times as much time is spent documenting than is spent with direct patient care.

This is one of the ways in which agencies such as JCAHO and the NQF (creators of the never event) have created an environment in which less provider/patient contact takes place. They are micromanaging healthcare providers into providing “safer care” by forcing them to document all the safety steps they have taken.