Medical Record Software gone Wild

Coming to computerization later in my medical career I think I have a better perspective on it than most.  Doctors older than I just ignored it until retirement.  Young cubs had to grow up with this stuff and seem to accept all manner of indignities without the ability to complain.

Anyway, I recently had to learn something new.  Not a complete medical record system, just the little slice of it that allows patients to be transitioned from the ER to the inpatient area.  My trainer was appalled that I had never bothered to learn this system and in fact had forgotten my passwords.  In my defense, I have been happily hand writing transition orders that up until now seem to do just fine.

But now we have a Federal Regulation that all transitions from ER to inpatient need to use a certain software.  I guess it applies everywhere in our galaxy, or so I have been advised.

Here are a few gems from the “Physician Training Checklist”

“Searching – wildcard dash”

“Shopping Cart”

“…if using half words always add a dash”

“Transaction lines = Select (bank of answers) Enter (free-text) Choose (buttons).

All pretty mundane.  But this bit of bureaucratic nonsense made it into my personal Hall of Infamy with a special gem:

“Duplicate balls – already ordered but can continue”