Illinois Healthcare- Nursing part 1

The Challenges of Healthcare, Part 1

By Charlie Melton

Everybody talks about how healthcare is a mess. Too many of us have no insurance or insufficient insurance. Too many of us have to choose between food or rent or medicine.

I don’t understand all of the aspects of healthcare. I understand very little. What I do understand is that health resources often go to the wrong place for the wrong reason.
If you’ve ever been to an emergency room you know the drill. You appear, wait, get assessed, wait for the doctor, and wait some more. The nurse tells you that you can go home and then you wait more. You end up concerned, then irritated, then border on furious.

You look out of the exam room you’re interred in and see nurses sitting at their station. They’re either peering into a computer monitor or writing on paper at length. If you stroll around and spy on the nurses they’re not writing a love letter or playing Angry Birds. The nurses are charting. They’re writing down every interaction with the patient, every observation, and every action taken or not taken.

While charting is an essential part of healthcare, to the uninitiated it seems to be excessive. With that concern I asked several professionals about charting.

I’m friends with several nurses on Facebook. I messaged them individually and asked each the same question. “My perception is that nurses spend most of their time on paperwork. What do you see as the biggest factor that makes this necessary?” About 10 nurses responded with almost identical observations.

Heather Tille is a self described “Ninja Nurse”. She works in a large hospital as an ICU nurse and she is a nursing instructor at a local college. She’s currently working on her master’s degree. She says that the amount of time charting varies according to the type of unit the nurse works in, but it ultimately takes away from direct patient care. Mrs. Tille says that nurses and their employers fear being sued and that influences the charting they do. She decries the fact that attorneys go for every conceivable person involved in patient care when suing for malpractice. She says this system makes fear and the quest for money the dominate factors in how a medical provider does business. Patient care suffers.

My good friend Brandie Walters is a RN. Brandie says, “If you’re involved in a lawsuit, if you didn’t write it down it didn’t happen. I even have to chart that I washed my hands and wore gloves. It’s a waste of time. I also have to chart the same information every time I see a particular patient. How about I spend that time taking care of someone? It’s the biggest thing I hate in my career. Charting is about money any way you put it.”

What I gleaned from nurses is that nurses, doctors, and companies fear lawsuits. Their perception is that they could do a better job for patients if the fear of attorneys wasn’t so pervasive.

Is that a rational fear? Do nurses really get named in malpractice suits? Does charting have a purpose other than to protect the individual care giver?

Am I naïve when I say that nurses are dedicated and caring professionals and the very idea of suing one is reprehensible?

Over the next couple of weeks I hope to explore what nurses do. Is the paperwork your nurse has to do excessive? Does it reduce the amount of care you receive? I’m not skilled enough to rewrite standard practices, but maybe we can start a discussion that will ultimately benefit us all. Please tell me what you think by emailing me at chasmelton@gmail.com or write me at P.O. Box 378, Norris City, Il 62869.