Friday, June 05, 2009

Rounds - Then and Now

Daily rounds - when doctors go to check on their patients and develop a therapeutic plan - have changed. A few short years ago, your list was developed containing the room room number, patient's name, diagnosis and looked something like this:
Room 2300 - Smith, Tom - CHF, Aortic stenosis
Room 2304 - Jones, Rhonda - s/p Acute MI, PCI
Room 4023 - Callahan, Robert - Atrial fibrillation
... and so on.
But now, our rounds have changed. We get to work, log on to the computer, and are greeted to this:
Addendum Notification Copy (1)
CC'd Charts (5)
Open Charts
Letters (1)
Covered Work
ED Follow-up (2)
Hospital ADT (4)
Incomplete Notes
Medication Cosign (15)
My Open Encounters (3)
Letters - Unsent (2)
Order Cosign (55)
Overdue Results (20)
Patient Call (3)
Patient Message
Phone Calls
Pre-Surgery Notification (12)
Result Notes (3)
Results (55)
Review Reports (4)
Staff Message (4)
Transcription Copy
Verbal Order Cosign (2)
Deficiency Letters (1)
Chart Deficiencies (1)
So if inpatients ever wonder where their doctors are, they should probably check one of the computer terminals.

After all, we're making rounds, 2009-style.

-Wes

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't you remember those message from Medical Records threatening to suspend one's admitting/scheduling privileges until you reconciled your paper charts?
~catherine

Christian Sinclair said...

Wow....that makes my inbox look pretty good. What system are you using?

Does staff message cover doc to doc messages? If not is there a part of the system to increase doc to doc contact?

DrWes said...

Catherine-

Those same threats still exist...

Christian-

We use EPIC and yes, "Staff Message" permits doc-to-doc and doc-to-nurse or doc-to-administrator communication. In fact, this is even how we sign out patients to the on-call doc now...

Anonymous said...

Holy schnikes! Looks more like a data entry operator's task list than a cardiologist's...