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Affinity nurses seek delay on electronic records
The nurses, who would be the primary users of the Cerner electronic health record (EHR) system, cited inadequate training and short staffing.
Affinity registered nurses, who are represented by the National Nurses Organizing Committee in Ohio, an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU), documented their concerns in a letter to hospital officials Friday. They said they tried to deliver it by hand along with a second letter demanding to negotiate a contract with the union. The letters were not accepted.
“This is serious,” said Michelle Mahon, a representative based in Cleveland for NNU. “The nurses are concerned about patient safety.”
Mahon said she emailed and faxed the demand to bargain to hospital officials and also emailed the letter of concern to the chief nursing officer and received no response.
Susan Koosh, vice president of marketing and community relations at Affinity, said the use of EHRs will increase quality and safety at Affinity, and significant training opportunities and extra staff and trainers have been added for the transition.
“We are very excited about implementation of our new electronic health record, which will go live this weekend,” Koosh said in an email. “We have thoughtfully prepared for this conversion for months, involving our clinicians in the process, providing significant training opportunities and adding extra staff to the schedule to help ensure a smooth transition.”
PATIENT SAFETY
The system has the potential of violating the Ohio Nursing Practice Act because it doesn’t permit nurses to communicate individualized, potentially life-saving information about their patients, the union said in a statement.
Other concerns include placement of workstations, which require nurses to turn their backs to patients while they document. Also, during one education session, the system apparently crashed once because 17 users overloaded it, according to the union.
“The National Nurses Organizing Committee’s press release contains inaccurate and offensive statements,” Koosh said.
“To suggest that Affinity has not provided sufficient training or adequate staffing — or that we would ever put patients at risk — is blatantly false and irresponsible. Our computer system is built with safeguards to ensure continuous operations, while the external training site does not have such protections.”
Cerner guidelines call for 16 hours of training for each nurse and nearly 95 percent of nurses have met this requirement, Koosh said. Affinity has established six computer labs with more than 75 stations, and the hospital also is accommodating extra training for clinicians who feel they need additional practice on the system.