At Sister Euphemia's place, the proverbial wrench was thrown in (not the towel, mind you), regarding all the particulars about getting this humongous EMR system up and running by 12/2/08. Somewhere in the long chain of those-who-know, a decision was made to wait till next year. Which means, "just around the next corner after Jan/1/09". Mine is not to wonder why, but to make it rhyme with just one try. I think I've gotten to the crux of the matter: Resistance to Change. Hmmmmm, that sounds familiar...

Outstanding Duress

Why does Care-Connect pose
Such outstanding duress?
I think it's worth reviewing
Because an incredible mess,
A conundrum of calamities
Is looming in the future,
Where a pat on the back and cookies
Or a 24-carat gold suture,
Won't be adequate to patch
Our confused and aging staff,
Surely Generation X & Y
Will share a hearty laugh.

Why is change so difficult?
We confront it every day,
Never knowing for certain
How a disease dilemma will play,
In yonder victims body
After a week of rampant infection,
Change, is delta squared unknown
And we love to predict its direction.

But an aspect of our jobs
Is guaranteed regular and static,
It's the paperwork we're accustomed to
After decades, it's automatic,
We know exactly what to chart and where
The closet and shelf where they're kept,
This electronic medical record
Blatantly exposes why some feel inept.

I predict a silent rebellion
Perhaps later, an ear-rending scream,
Will be issuing forth from the multitudes
Who thought this nightmare, was surely a dream,
Then the PTO, Sick-calls and other
Will be ringing the phone off the desk,
Forty-five Nurses resigning
And swapping their jobs for burlesque.

I seriously doubt, that this disaster was foreseen
Assumptions were made, regarding the nurses,
Figuring heck, we're such resilient troubleshooters
We'll just knuckle down, muttering our favorite curses,
But, here in the waning, august years of our life
Who wants to deal, with the mother-of-pain,
Why not run with the pension and the 403(b)
And let them hire some new-grads to train.

Fibril_late;
11/10/08