#UnityIsComing

January 9, 2019

By Dominic LeGros, Informatics Nurse

Well, blog number 2; hopefully I’ve still got at least one reader!

Do you ever feel like you are drowning in a sea of paper? Drug charts, observation charts, stool charts, food charts, fluid balance; the tide seems to keep rising as we invent new bits of paper every day… It even chases us around, look in your pocket – go on, have a look, I’ll wait here.

Well? Did you find a small forest of bits of paper trying to take over your pocket? Handover sheets, maybe the odd paper towel with reminders scribbled on? Yet when you want a particular piece of paper, you can guarantee it’ll be the one that’s gone into hiding (until you get home and it jumps out of your pocket and falls on the floor).

One of the key principles of Unity, and all electronic patient records is to try and remove as many of these rogue bits of dead tree and contain as much information in one place. This way you always know where critical information on your patients is, and you can access it from anywhere rather than having to hunt down the right folder. And we get to help the environment by chopping down fewer trees to make all of these bits of paper.

Don’t get me wrong, we are not trying to get rid of all paper, with the current technology available to us, and our partner organisations, it just isn’t possible – yet.

What does this mean for our patients? After all, they are the reason we are all here… Hunting around for bits of paper takes time, leafing through a three-inch thick folder to find that one sheet you are looking for is time we spend not doing what we are here for; caring for our patients.

The ability to access a patient’s record from anywhere means that potentially deteriorating patients can be reviewed quickly as clinicians can review the notes before they even arrive on the ward.

Unity is coming, and #paperisgoing

#hellomynameis… Dom, and I am one of your informatics nurses.

#Unity–releasing time to care