I Want To Marry A Rich Man

Work has always been a pain in the butt, but now it is becoming even more so. Who thought that was possible? With computerized charting, administration can now monitor our charting in progress. Before, they had to come to the floor to see the charting after we were done. There was time to make it nice and pretty before anyone could see it.

Now, they can see in real time how the charting is progressing. We are required to make rounds on our patients every hour and chart what we saw and did. It is usually possible to do the hourly rounding, which, if the patient is fine, takes about thirty seconds. But, to log onto the computer in each room and record the round takes two or three minutes. Multiply that by five patients and that is a ten or fifteen minute chunk out of every hour.

To someone sitting at their desk in an ivory tower with all the time in the world, that may not sound like a big deal, but to nurses on the floor, that time makes the difference between patients getting their needs met now as opposed to later. For patients, every minute of delay in getting what they want is an eternity. And, they let us know it.

I usually try to catch up on my charting about halfway through the shift when it usually quiets down a little. Charting on all of the patients at once on one computer is the most time-efficient way to chart. It takes about ten minutes every four hours to chart as opposed to ten or fifteen minutes every hour. So far, management has left me alone. Perhaps, they are checking my charting after the halfway mark. But, just knowing management is looking at our charting in progress is stressing me out.

The nurses are starting to quit. We hate the new hospital, the cuts in support staff that increase our work load and the micro-managing. The nurses have been told that if they don't like it, they know where the door is. More nurses are going through that door.