Upon learning about this grant, our organization met with the nursing team and reviewed our clinical process and potential areas for improvement. As a team, we identified the leading stressors affecting our nurses. The identified stressor within our organization that has the most significant impact on the nursing team is our current electronic medical record system, including our current pharmacy. Our current POS system is called Quickmar, and our current pharmacy is PharMerica.
Quickmar, the form we currently utilize, lacks many aspects needed to organize and track information successfully. A POS system is necessary to keep up with current best practices for the coordination of care internally and between organizations. Our current system lacks many aspects the nursing staff needs to effectively and efficiently organize and track data. Many of our documents continue to be done on paper. This includes skin tracking, meal logs, bowel logs, and care plans. This makes it very difficult and time-consuming for the nursing team to receive the information needed to provide the top level of care our facility strives to give.
The nursing team must spend limited time sifting through paperwork to find information vital to their role. This time spent searching for information that, with a different system, would be readily available limits the nurses’ time at the bedside and is a source of stress for the nurses. With a more updated POS system, this information is available in the electronic record and easily accessible to nurses even when they are not in the facility. PharMerica has also been another stressor on the nursing team. The current processes PharMerica has in place have led to medical errors and duplication of work. In our recent state survey at Kinsington Redwood Park, a pharmacy error led to citations and a less desirable outcome for the community.
The nursing staff began discussing how to have a more integrated and updated system as these issues were being identified. After the failed state survey, it became clear that a new system was necessary to manage our residents’ records more accurately and effectively. The state survey team mentioned multiple times that an upgraded POS system such as Point Click Care would prevent many of the issues that we were cited for. We began researching POS systems and decided that PCC would best meet the needs of our communities. PCC would allow us to streamline our processes, allowing our nursing team to gather and analyze data efficiently and effectively. This would ensure our residents receive the best care possible, enabling the nursing team to have more time at the bedside. While researching a new POS, we learned that a new pharmacy called Consonus integrates very well with PCC. As an organization, we decided to move forward with a systematic change to PCC and Consonus.
