Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

Dr. Darrell White's Personal Blog

Cape Cod

Posts Tagged ‘electronic health record’

An EPIC Adventure IV: I’m In!

Been wondering where I’ve been on this one? Well, a couple of months of frustration, unable to log onto the CCF system either from my office (password issues) or the Surgery Center (no idea), followed by a brilliant phone call with one of the tech support folks downtown and a meeting with Andrew at the Surgery Center and I’m in!

Oooops…well, all is not ducky, but not too bad, really. 50 some odd op notes to sign, a couple dozen useless, unnecessary PAT lab sheets to ignore (we have patients sign a disclaimer punting all interactions re: PAT for cataract surgery to anesthesia who demanded it), and then the stab in the eye: 50+ med orders to sign that were ALREADY SIGNED  in the OR. Thankfully my guy Andrew promised to handle the duplication on the pharmacy side of the equation with a little “education”.

So, I was feeling pretty good when Andrew asked about my standard op note which magically appears the week after surgery to be signed; I have one for right eyes and one for left, all teed up for any case that doesn’t deviate from the norm, representing upward of 80% of my cataract cases. Takes me ~2.5 seconds to sign each one. It turns out that the vaunted Cleveland Clinic is about to move to a digital signature only status for everything. That’s right boys and girls, come October I will have to log on, sign in, find each one, designate the eye or in some other way prove I was there, and “sign” the op note. Yup, ~2.5 seconds per chart will then turn into somewhere closer to 3 or 4 minutes. For the record my “cut-to-close” time for a standard case is roughly 6 minutes.

Sigh…

Let’s hear it for increased efficiency! Decreased errors! More accountability! Oh…right…we’re not having any problems with any of that now, are we? Well then, let’s hear it for progress!