Wednesday, September 06, 2006
VAMC...not your typical hospital...
My orientation continues. As anticipated, the computer charting is TOTALLY different from anywhere else that I have ever worked. (It is always that way when you enter a new hospital system. Until you get familiar with the computer documentation specific to that hospital, it is enough to make your eyes glaze and your head throb! Oh well!)
But, other than my anticipated differences at the VA, (like the charting and, of course, it being the only hospital left of the probably 35-40 hospitals in the greater KC area and surrounding suburbs (both Kansas and Missouri sides) that still allows smoking), there have been a lot of UNEXPECTED differences. ....like, yesterday, when I found myself lost among all the unfamiliar military phrases and acronymns that are the daily lingo of that hospital. Today, I stupidly asked how they scan the bar codes on the supplies they pull to use for patients. In EVERY hospital around, they are downright anal about making sure the employees ALWAYS charge for each and every little thing they remove from the supply room to use for a patient. Not so at the VA...there is no patient specific accounting for the supplies. You just take what you need to care for your patient. No fuss, no muss, no bother!
I was struck by another difference, too.... No matter what hospital you go to, the entire litany of admission questions you must ask each patient is pretty much universal. Except at the VA! Today, as we went through the admission paperwork in our computer class, I was taken completely off guard by one of the questions that is standard to ask each patient..."Do you have any weapons on you? Are you carrying a gun?" In twenty six years of nursing, I don't guess I have ever even THOUGHT to ask any patient that! But, it is one of the required questions to be asked of every patient admitted to the VA. Guess it makes sense! But, it sure made me do a double take today when that question popped up on my admission screen!
I really like the hospital, the staff, the patients... and the equipment is the best I have ever worked with (all sorts of bells and whistles on the IV pumps that I never even KNEW existed!)... but, I HATE the computer documentation. I know it will probably be "nothing" once I am thoroughly familiar with it and used to using it, but, I just have to say, in this moment, in my opinion, it is a confusing quagmire of windows and screens and quite user-unfriendly. I wish every hospital system in the nation could all just use the same computer software! Sigh.
(Actually, OVERWHELMING is the term I think most accurately descibes my present view of the software used by the VA....but, this software can do ALL SORTS of things that I have never seen available in Medi-tech or some of the other hospital softwares that I have used in the past. I will probably love it once I get a handle on it.)
(Surprisingly enough, though, there are some very SIMPLISTIC things that were standard to document electronically other places I have worked that are still only done on paper at the VA....so ironic when their software is lightyears ahead of Meditech overall.) Who knows why! ¶ 9/06/2006 04:19:00 PM
But, other than my anticipated differences at the VA, (like the charting and, of course, it being the only hospital left of the probably 35-40 hospitals in the greater KC area and surrounding suburbs (both Kansas and Missouri sides) that still allows smoking), there have been a lot of UNEXPECTED differences. ....like, yesterday, when I found myself lost among all the unfamiliar military phrases and acronymns that are the daily lingo of that hospital. Today, I stupidly asked how they scan the bar codes on the supplies they pull to use for patients. In EVERY hospital around, they are downright anal about making sure the employees ALWAYS charge for each and every little thing they remove from the supply room to use for a patient. Not so at the VA...there is no patient specific accounting for the supplies. You just take what you need to care for your patient. No fuss, no muss, no bother!
I was struck by another difference, too.... No matter what hospital you go to, the entire litany of admission questions you must ask each patient is pretty much universal. Except at the VA! Today, as we went through the admission paperwork in our computer class, I was taken completely off guard by one of the questions that is standard to ask each patient..."Do you have any weapons on you? Are you carrying a gun?" In twenty six years of nursing, I don't guess I have ever even THOUGHT to ask any patient that! But, it is one of the required questions to be asked of every patient admitted to the VA. Guess it makes sense! But, it sure made me do a double take today when that question popped up on my admission screen!
I really like the hospital, the staff, the patients... and the equipment is the best I have ever worked with (all sorts of bells and whistles on the IV pumps that I never even KNEW existed!)... but, I HATE the computer documentation. I know it will probably be "nothing" once I am thoroughly familiar with it and used to using it, but, I just have to say, in this moment, in my opinion, it is a confusing quagmire of windows and screens and quite user-unfriendly. I wish every hospital system in the nation could all just use the same computer software! Sigh.
(Actually, OVERWHELMING is the term I think most accurately descibes my present view of the software used by the VA....but, this software can do ALL SORTS of things that I have never seen available in Medi-tech or some of the other hospital softwares that I have used in the past. I will probably love it once I get a handle on it.)
(Surprisingly enough, though, there are some very SIMPLISTIC things that were standard to document electronically other places I have worked that are still only done on paper at the VA....so ironic when their software is lightyears ahead of Meditech overall.) Who knows why! ¶ 9/06/2006 04:19:00 PM
