Nurses are an integral part of any healthcare organization

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Nurses are an integral part of any healthcare organization. Educating nurses on technology and equipment use is substantial to the organization’s success (Mentel, 2017).  Many argue that nurses wear many hats throughout the typical work day and remain the center of every happenings of the patient. Nurses not only have to know how to operate technology that is located in their department but need to know the in and outs of how to prepare their patient for equipment of other departments (Strachan, 2018). They also have to be educated enough to know adverse effects to look for after certain procedures (Strachan, 2018).

            Patient care not only involves knowing one’s technology in their department but it expands to other departments. Nurses remain patient advocates and for them to not be a part of the decision-making process means they would not know where to intervene on behalf of the patients. One example that came to mind when thinking of this topic was the inclusion of CPOE for the physician’s use. CPOE stands for computerized physician’s order entry. The physicians were the only ones set to learn this new task by the hospital. Through CPOE they would be able to document, view patient’s record, enter electronic medication and nursing orders and also print electronic prescriptions (Sebetci, 2018). It seemed that daily we ran into problems with the physicians not being able to complete a task within CPOE . They also were neglecting to complete a tasks which would cause a medication discrepancy or a task not well communicated to the nurse or others on the healthcare team. It was a tough transition period as many physicians were instructed to receive additional training on this piece of technology. It was a balancing act of them finding time to actually complete the training and seeing their patients.

            It seemed that each day, us nurses would have to work to bridge the gap by trying to educate ourselves on the CPOE use without any formal training so that we could assist the physicians when they rounded. Some of the problems that arose from the physicians not knowing how to properly use CPOE were as follows. 1. No prescriptions were printed for discharged patients causing a disruption in their continued care 2. Critical or borderline labs were missed by physicians 3. poor communication to nurses and others on the healthcare team 4. They missed major steps in documentation. This was a very grave problem as regulating agencies are looking for these steps to be done in order for the organization to remain in compliance.

            This writer believes it would be beneficial to educate nurses on this task as well since most of what the physical does in CPOE affects the nurse’s duties. It was very overwhelming and confusing trying to figure out a program that was never taught to us and trying to assist the physician with what we know. Many people may not have taken the time to do this but each task that the physician does not know how to complete, ultimately affects the job of the nurse. Overall, the patient’s wellbeing and safety is at the utmost importance and therefore we all need to be educated so that we have adequate knowledge on how to take care of the patients.

References

 Mentel, A. (2017). Decision-Making Styles and Subjective Performance Evaluation of Decision-

Making Quality among Hospital Nurses. Studia Psychologica, (3), 217.

Sebetci, O. (2018). Enhancing end-user satisfaction through technology compatibility: An

assessment on health information system. Health Policy and Technology,

7(3), 265–274.

Strachan, P. (2018). Canadian hospital nurses’ roles in communication and decision-making

about goals of care: An interpretive description of critical incidents.

Applied Nursing Research, 40, 26–33.