I'm still agreeing with David on this one. Although I've finally arranged a workflow in my office around AC, it was much simpler in the old days.
My nurse did a lot in the "old days". Not so much anymore. I used to see the patient and for f/u or post-ops I could quickly dictate a note in between patients in less than a minute and send a copy of the note to the referring doc all in one breath. Done. If the patient needed f/u, lab, rx, I would tell my nurse and it would get done. That's it. Things happened as quickly as I could speak and tell my nurse what to do. I jetted to the next patient while my nurse took care of the labs, rx, radiology test, f/u appts. The new pts and consults would get dictated right after lunch and I had a standard template for H&Ps so all I did was dictate changes to the standard template and dictate the HPI/Assessment/Plan. It was fast. Very fast.
So I didn't really feel I was doing any clerical work during that time except for the standard notes that all docs have to do and get delegate.
Initially with AC I was doing the rx, labs, radiology, note, referral note, reviewing and importing pathology/radiology/lab.
I now have got it down where I do the note (and fax it to the hospital through a few steps to pull up the fax machine), the referral note (and fax it to the referring doc through a few steps to produce the letter, and pull up the fax machine/address book/fax it), and all eRx is having to be done by me due to provider restrictions.
Why my nurse/M.A. can't send an eRx under AC just astounds me. I should be able to mark her security as safe for eRx. Hell, she calls in everything else in the world. Why wouldn't she be able to eRx? If I give her enough power to eRx, then when she imports stuff, AC doesn't require me to sign off of it which needs to be done. But that's another story.
Having to buy another computer and printer for every room, have space for that in every room, and route ethernet cables to every room is more than I think it's worth.
Either way. I wouldn't go back to paper. AC has its advantages. Speed is probably not one of them though.
