Workarounds May Work, But They Perpetuate Dysfunction
Photo © Associated Press
A couple of months ago, we posted a query on Facebook asking visitors to the page if they had ever used workarounds—the improvised shortcuts that may not be the standard practice or the policy, but may allow for more efficient work processes. We were amazed at the uniformity of the responses. No one saw a problem with workarounds, and most responded along the lines of “I love my workarounds—couldn’t do my job without them” and “I’ll never tell—keep hands off my workarounds.”
Nothing new.
Workarounds have probably been around since Florence Nightingale’s day—I can imagine one of her nurses at Scutari hiding lamp oil so she’d have enough to make rounds at night. In my early nursing days, we hid sheets so we’d have some in case we needed an extra bed change for a patient. When I worked in the ER of a busy city hospital, we kept a pretty large supply of IV fluids and medications on hand in a closet. It became a well-known secret that the ER had its own stockpile—in fact, there were occasions when the pharmacy would come to us for meds!
Today, the workarounds I hear about tend to revolve around dealing with the electronic health record and scanning medication bar codes.
Some cautions.
In this […]
