EMR (Cerner)

        During my clinicals at St. Joseph’s Medical and Doctor’s Medical Center, we used Cerner as our EMR system. The formal training was provided by Doctor’s but I got my most of the hands-on practice at St. Joe’s as most of the nurses I followed there allowed me to do the charting. Also, my preceptorship at St. Joe’s gave me the opportunity to navigate Cerner more intensively, limited only by student restrictions to certain “groups”. I was, however, able to chart in pain and sedation levels, VS, body system assessments, I&O, wound assessments as well as document management of lines, tubes, and drains. I also looked up orders and protocols and scheduled and PRN medications. I also used the Medication Administration application embedded in Cerner to scan and sign off medications. The software was pretty intuitive and does a good job detecting discrepancies between what’s on the order vs what was scanned. This way, errors are minimized, and patient safety is more easily enforced.