My wife, a nursing student, was sharing with her teacher about how passionate I am about technology in healthcare. Her teacher responded that she thought we need less technology and told a story why she felt so strongly that way. I would like to share this story with you.

Jenny, as we will call her because the patient's name was never shared, was a little girl who had previously been in the hospital ward for cancer for four years and was discharged. Then a while later she relapsed and had to be given a very strong chemo treatment medicine. This medicine is so strong and so toxic that it requires pre-hydration and post-hydration for three days with I.V. fluid. However, after the medicine was administered, three nurses were attending to the charting software to enter in everything required of them and make the appropriate orders, missed a very critical piece of information. Jenny was supposed to be given 3 days of I.V. hydration. But the three nurses, with over 10 years experience, were too distracted trying to figure out the software they were using, they completely missed it.

When the morning nurse came in the next day, she had died of toxicity and dehydration. For two shifts, she had missed her hydration and all because the three, very good nurses, were stuck trying to figure this out…

Note: The large black arrow is from the screenshot I found.

This screenshot I found is similar to the one my wife uses every day. I can't imagine what the UI must have looked like years ago.

Here are a few more I found, dates unknown: