Nursing Burnout in a Digital Era
Living in a digital era has many benefits. I can order my coffee from my phone and it will be hot and ready when I go pick it up, I can create a digital shopping cart and someone will deliver my groceries to my car when I’m finished with work in the evening, I can even earn an advanced degree from my living room. Our digital world is meant to make our lives easier and less complicated. Why then, as healthcare has implemented electronic health records, are more nurses experiencing stress and burnout? I have seen nurses quit their jobs because of increased levels of stress learning how to operate a new charting system. I have had nurses who have worked with different systems in the past struggle insurmountably with our electronic medical record. I have read error reports that blame the health record and state information wasn’t flagged in the chart to alert them of an issue. Working with an electronic health record (EHR)...