Computers Need to Work for Nurses, not the Other Way 'Round

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Dear Editor:

As an ED Director, I sit in many meetings discussing various applications of computers and equipment. I have a unique perspective though, because I was a database administrator for many years before entering nursing. But the “nurse advocate” in me allows me to see things from a different point of view. For example, at a recent hospital-wide meeting of Nurse Directors, we discussed our hospital's expansion of an automatic medication dispensing system. The other Nursing Directors were saying, “We need engineering to come up and tell us where it will fit.” I objected. I said what we really needed to do was to decide where the machines needed to go, to make it easiest for the nurses, and then tell engineering they needed to make it fit. It has been my observation that too many nurses arrive at management positions and then lose perspective. We need equipment that WORKS FOR NURSES not the other way around. Let's not say, “this is the way we have always done it.” Let's all be the leaders that we need and stand up for our profession and our colleagues.