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FEATURE
riodic competition between the Chinese guy with his abacus versus
the techie on a keyboard (the Chinese always win). When it comes
to orders, Med Recs and progress notes, my cursive always beats
Times New Roman. Computers are supposed to simplify our lives.
Instead they’ve become like the clingy kid who wants to help
straighten the garage — takes twice as long.
Beef No. 3: Why can’t all hospital systems attend the same church?
Don’t know much about the Catholics, but the Methodists and Bap-
tists are racing each other into computer Purgatory (I know; I’m
mixing doctrines, but explain Saint Luke’s Baptist to me). Just when
I’m getting a slippery grip on Meditech at Methodist, the Baptist
system outdoes them in user-unfriendliness. And they’re in your face
— comply or else!! Hey, remember me? I bring you business. I’ve
been forced to choose a sect and am now a monogamous Methodist
by the lesser-of-two-evil’s doctrine.
despite their shiny, hi-tech exterior, can’t fight worth S#!*? The Jedis DEMISE OF THE FORCE
mow them down like dominos. It’s kinda like sending out Ewoks, Alas, the clones are winning. They’re sluggish, can’t fight worth
with their spears and rocks, against the Death Star. I’m no IT nerd,
but I’ve used Microsoft Word for decades. To make a change you #*!, and every satellite has its separate unintelligible language. Un-
hi-lite, delete, and change — simple. So why do our hospital com- like C-3P0, I can’t master two forms of communication let along
puters require death by a hundred clicks to do a simple Med Rec or six million. Seems to me that A New Hope has become The Phan-
post-op orders? There are windows within windows with ‘accepts’, tom Menace.
‘over-rides’, ‘dones’ and ‘enters’ out the gazoo! I once punched ‘done’
instead of ‘enter’ (they were practically next to each other) and undid Robert G. Johnson, MD, is an orthopaedic surgeon, a
15 minutes of work. Instead of presenting me with a dozen choices BCMS member and a frequent contributor to San Anto-
for prescribing Vancomycin, let me print my way from the get-go. nio Medicine.
I keep getting DOS (Digital Operating System) thrown at me as an
excuse for why Meditech sucks (We’re a DOS based system). Ever
googled DOS? You’ll be greeted with words like ‘old’, ‘vintage’ and
‘retro’; sentences like ‘MS-DOS dominated the market between
1981 and 1995.’ I was a resident in 1981 and I’m ancient.
Beef No. 2: I’m busy. I have a tight schedule. I’ll finish a case at 1
p.m. with an office that started at noon. So I sit for 20 minutes typ-
ing (a skill that bypassed me in high school). Reminds me of the pe-
visit us at www.bcms.org 27
