InterOpNurse Experience: Training versus Compliance
Background: Unit secretaries and nurses entering wrong ordering Physician at the point of order entry. Causing a lot of frustration for the receiving downstream ancillary department.
Client Perspective: “Can’t this issue be dealt with through more training.”
InterOpNurse Perspective: The heart of the issue here is not really training but rather is about compliance. The users obviously know how to place an order and place an ordering physician. The problem is ensuring they select the correct Physician. This is a compliance issue and not a training one. There is no amount of training that will solve compliance. Unfortunately there is no way a system can identify if a user is placing an order on behalf of the wrong Physician. The only fix for this is when CPOE (Computerized Provider Order Entry) is implemented. However this requires major planning and implementation to get Physicians to be trained to enter their own orders.
InterOpNurse Thoughts: The situation described above is a perfect example of some of the unfair expectations people have of systems at times. A system is a tool, and is never meant to be a security officer (although there are certain tools to help audit). A system will not prevent a bad clinician from being a bad clinician, to expect otherwise will cause a lot of people a great deal of disappointments. I dealt with the situation above by informing clinical leaders of the issue, and addressing with their staff the importance of compliance and how it affects downstream departments. I then went on and advised the frustrated Ancillary department that further issues should be addressed at a departmental level (because where do you draw the line, where in as a department that manages an EMR we become responsible for every problem).
Flickr
