[This article has been updated with further comment from Providence St. Joseph Hospital representatives.]
Four out of six traveling intensive care nurses quit just one day after arriving at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka, California last week.
The reason, according to hospital officials quoted at the local outlet Times standard, concerned a lack of familiarity with the hospital’s electronic health record.
“The main reason was that they were unfamiliar with our electronic health record system – a system used by many hospitals,” said Dr. Roberta Luskin-Hawk, executive director of Providence in Humboldt County.
“Providence St Joseph Hospital currently has Meditech as an electronic health record and will be migrating to Epic later this month,” Luskin-Hawk said in an email to Healthcare IT News after the release.
“The State of California [Medical Health Operational Area Coordination] System has helped respond to the pandemic by reallocating human resources to hospitals that have been severely affected by the pandemic, whose usual temp agencies are unable to provide the necessary staff. This requires the use of new agencies, and in this case the nurses sent to Eureka had no experience with Meditech, “she continued.
“Education developed quickly,” she added. “The situation reflects the rapidly changing deployment of health workers from all sources to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
WHY IT IS IMPORTANT
Providence St. Joseph originally brought six traveling ICU nurses and two respiratory therapists with it last week amid the ongoing resource stress from COVID-19.
From Wednesday there was only seven available intensive care beds in the Humboldt Circle; 10 were occupied by COVID-19 patients.
But four of these intensive care nurses quit the day after they arrived on board, Times Standard reporter Isabella Vanderheiden said.
A California Nurses Association spokesman told Vanderheiden that the nurses were not given adequate resources, “including access to the unit’s electronic card system, and were given full patient assignments instantly with little guidance. So four out of six quit.”
“In the words of one of them, travelers were ‘thrown into the wolves’ and with all the options available to travelers these days, they just didn’t come back,” said spokesman Ian Seldon.
THE BIGGER TREND
Clinicians’ morale has deteriorated a big hit among COVID-19to report with nursing staff increased feeling of burnout in the second year of a devastating pandemic.
Health worker says Technology can often help – but it can also make things worse.
EHR usability is an essential factor.
“Having so many boxes and confirming screens for the EHR and other systems can undermine our time and focus on patient care,” said Sophia L. Thomas, president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Healthcare IT News said last year.
ON THE RECORD
“Not only are we excited to meet the immediate needs of our communities, but we look forward to migrating to a more widespread electronic health record system in the coming weeks and will continue to work on additional projects that will improve our health care system in the near future.” Term and for years to come, “said Luskin-Hawk of Providence.
Kat Jercich is the Editor-in-Chief of Healthcare IT News.
Twitter: @kjercich
E-mail: kjercich@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
