6 ms·
Not sure where the author is from, but I'm not aware of any states that still allow paper PCRs. ePCRs are just a fact of life. I pretty much never bother openi
by JshWright 7y ago
Not sure where the author is from, but I'm not aware of any states that still allow paper PCRs. ePCRs are just a fact of life.
I pretty much never bother opening the laptop until I'm at the hospital. There are a lot of reasons for that, but a laggy UX isn't really one of them (despite the fact that the UX is indeed super laggy on any ePCR I've ever used). Instead I use a pen and paper (or a pen and a strip of white medical tape on my thigh, for a more critical patient).
The reason I don't bother is because the whole UI is just too much of a hassle. Not the application frontend, the whole thing. The laptop, the keyboard, etc. With a pen and paper I don't have to keep taking my gloves off and putting new ones on each time I need to switch from documenting something to caring for the patient (a pen is trivial to wipe down, or just toss if needed). With a pen and paper I can jot simple notes in a shorthand I'm familiar with, rather than having to navigate to the right page to enter the information I want to record at the moment.
I know very few providers that bother touching the laptop prior to arrival at the hospital. Generally we write notes on paper, then bring the laptop into the ER and start typing while we we're waiting for a bed for our patient (it's not uncommon that this takes long enough to get the whole chart written). At my agency we have two hours from when we transfer care to when the chart has to be signed off and locked.
I also chuckled at the suggestion that "0.1% of PCRs have errors that waste an hour of a doctor's time". In my experience 0.1% is pretty much how frequently the PCR gets reviewed at all in the ER, and anything important enough to spend an _hour_ on would have been mentioned up front during the transfer of care (nevermind the fact that an hour is an absurd amount of time for a doctor to be spending on a single patient).
- psychrometer 7y agoAccording to the about section of his blog, he is in Chicago. https://hillelwayne.com/about/ https://hillelwayne.com/about/
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoWouldn’t a stylus/tablet interface provide the same benefits of a pen and paper solution for that requirement (well, you could wipe down the stylus, maybe chucking it is extreme)?
- JshWright 7y agoNot really. You still have to handle the tablet, and it's just more of a hassle to interact with (a piece of paper is a lot less fragile). A stylus will just get lost within the first day (we use laptops that in theory have a stylus, but I've never actually seen one... just an empty hole in the side of the laptop).
- filoleg 7y ago>a stylus will just get lost within the first day Extremely relatable. Someone needs to come up with a stylus that is permanently attached to a laptop using a wire or some other sort of contraption, similar to writing pads with permanently attached pens. The slot (hole) for the stylus should still stay, so that it can be packed up/stored neatly. The main reason it was not done yet, my guess, is because of the dangling cable from the tablet when the stylus is stored in the slot, but it could be retractable for storage or something like that.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoOr just use a resistive digitizer above the screen and make anything with a tip a stylus, so they can be disposable and replaceable like pens.
- richardw 7y agoYou can wipe down a tablet but not a pad. Isn't there some risk of transmission via the paper pad? (Thank you for the insights!)
- pbreit 7y agoSounds like you are saying similar/same thing.
- JshWright 7y agoWe're describing the same outcome. The author is describing a very different cause of that outcome.
- joshstrange 7y agoMy boyfriend is a nurse and said a very similar thing. He said he very rarely looks at a PCR as everything important is conveyed verbally when the handoff from EMT->Hospital.
- JshWright 7y agoI'm glad I omitted the ER nurse targeted snark in that case... ;)