It's enough to make one's head explode -- perfect image!
Are you sure you don't work at a VA???
Josh, I promise --- this is good old fashioned private practice, heavily seasoned with enough stupid regulations to make any sane person lose it regularly.
I feel your pain-acutely. It's just one more thing that makes no sense.
BTW, I love the exploding head.
Doc... sounds like the facility is making the standards more convoluted than they truly are (as most do). I agree that med rec is nothing new.
We use one form that captures the continuum. It has current med list (if known-- we also have a place on the same "form" that states that the pt. is a poor historian/no available support/unknown home meds); med's used in treatment and med's sent home on. We print off "home" med's from our e-Mar for the patient on discharge.
Interesting as a non-US (ie outside) observer how your health system is becoming more socialist/bureaucratic than those systems that actually are socialist!
Doc,
At this hospital I used to work at, we had two separate lists - one for the pts. HOME Meds... which was distinct and different from the patient's "Med Rec Sheet".
The way the retarded computer system was set up, the patient's home meds may or may not always appear on the patient's med rec sheet.
If this wasn't confusing enough, the problems would begin when we discharged patients at which point we'd have to navigate the "Discharge Med Rec Sheet"...
It drove me to drink...
As a pediatric ICU RN, I feel your pain myself. And after the MD has completed their H&P and med rec FORMS, I have to go in and get all the same information!! Never mind that in my world, we are asking parents of a critically ill or injured CHILD!! The TREATMENT of that CHILD will have to wait until all the prerequisite FORMS are done!!
Oh, and I forgot to mention. You know all those FORMS you fill out pre-op? Guess what? They're not good enough post-op when the patient get's to the ICU!! We have to fill them all out AGAIN!!!
And if I remember correctly, "resistance is futile". You are too funny, btw.
Mimi
OMG....too funny but oh, so true and oh so painful. This med recon list is a big deal where I work too. I was recently paged at 0215 (text paged with no identification of who sent the page)after admitting a patient via the ED at 10 PM. I had not done a med recon list and now, asleep in my bed at home trying to catch up on some zzzzzz before another tough day at work I get the page: " Please complete an accurate medication reconciliation note for pt in room _____; this should be done within 4 hours of admission. Thanks!" Oy. The part I liked best/least was the exclamation point after Thanks!. My sleep was worth nothing to this person. He/She was counting fecal molecules in farts.
i don't know how my kind, wonderful internest deals with all this s@it and still remains the dear that he is...i am one lucky gal. (now watch him retire-in his late 30's!, or go do something else, etc, just my luck...!).
So sorry you have to deal with all this crap :-P
LOVE the exploding head!
What's worse, every time JACHO comes by, they tell us we have to add more things to the forms. So now we have people admitted for schizophrenia, who get the mandatory pain assessments. We get people who are catatonic, and the nurse dutifully assesses their "preferred learning style." I'm sure next year, we'll have to document "paper or plastic?"
Regret to say, I love the exploding head. It perfectly expresses my feelings about the JCAHO bureaucrats, and about the paper-pushers in my hospital silly enough to take them seriously (distinct from the poor administrators who know better but are forced to comply).
Preach on, Doc!
The VOGONS - oh my, what a perfect analogy.
Great exploding head! : D
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