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Cerner PowerChart Tips/Tricks?


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I just started using Cerner for my new inpatient job and find it to be the least intuitive EMR system I've encountered thus far. My training was a brief Zoom session where I could barely hear the instructor's voice. 

Please give me your favorite tips/tricks to navigate the system.

I'm trying to "Favorite" as many orders as I go along and build up my dot phrases. Do you have a nifty way of organizing your orders and dot phrases? Is there a public library of dot phrases I can utilize? I found nothing through Google Search. 

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sounds like you are on the right track. Favorite as many labs and orders as you can that you use daily as well as d/c meds. come up with standardized d/c dot phrases to use regularly. If your system still has the option of templates for procedures and critical care time, etc , utilize those when you can. I actually like cerner more than epic in the emergency dept setting as epic has way too many features that just get in the way of a straightforward charting process with too many drop down menus, etc. 

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I used Cerner in my last job for 5 years. I recommend getting macros/auto texts made up I would use "zz" as the prefix i.e. "zzhtn" and I made it to auto type global negatives then I could go back and change to pertinent positives as needed. Or you can also template all your usual presentations. Caveat with these tricks though is to be diligent to look over or know what it's exactly saying so u won't put in erroneous data or "clone notes". You can also share auto texts and templates across the practice so ask your colleagues what they use and if not already, shared ask them to share their templates.

 

I'm at a new job and our EMR sucks. I used to complain about some niggling things about Cerner but having used several EMRs in the past I rank it right next to Epic with Epic having the slight edge. Bit I miss Cerner and wish we had it at my current job.

 

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I start Cerner soon. It has its benefits but no EMR actually works the way most of us were taught to think in medicine. Most every EMR is designed for BILLING, not logic, common sense or medical flow of knowledge and care. 

I miss Centricity and even Epic.

AllScripts is by far the WORST EMR ever made.

Super User training for Cerner starts soon --- I have TUMS and some pepcid standing by. 

Deep Sigh

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I’ve used cerner the last several years in UC and am surviving. I’ve used many EMR’s and they all have their issues but cerner is definitely more irritating than others. Dot phrases and macros will be your friend as others have said. I’ll also just add the whole “when in doubt, refresh”. Their IT support isn’t that great either. Saving any patient education materials as you go along will help as cerner cannot seem to auto populate things related to your diagnosis during the discharge process. Had a patient with an ankle sprain and the first recommended patient education was on autoimmune disorders. Odd. Good luck! 

3B579520-9530-4529-9FB1-957D28ABAE54.jpeg

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I’ve used cerner the last several years in UC and am surviving. I’ve used many EMR’s and they all have their issues but cerner is definitely more irritating than others. Dot phrases and macros will be your friend as others have said. I’ll also just add the whole “when in doubt, refresh”. Their IT support isn’t that great either. Saving any patient education materials as you go along will help as cerner cannot seem to auto populate things related to your diagnosis during the discharge process. Had a patient with an ankle sprain and the first recommended patient education was on autoimmune disorders. Odd. Good luck!  3B579520-9530-4529-9FB1-957D28ABAE54.jpeg.7d7a6fc5791b528834f23b4d6aec186d.jpeg

 

i used to think Cerner was bad but since I left that job I have had 2 other EMRs. One is Athena-this is very text heavy and more focused on billing so it was a lot less efficient at least for me.

 

I started a new PC job (well, I went back to my first PC PA job at the practice I helped start) and now I'm using IMS/Meditabs. I gotta say...THIS IS THE FREAKING WORST EMR EVER!!!! and I would LOVE to get Cerner back! In IMS you literally have to do at least 3 or more steps to do something as simple as sending an RX. While you are writing a note, and you are in the Rx module, you write the RX and click save...You would think thats it right? no you have to go to the "Send/eFax/eRX" tab, then find the prescription you wrote, you select the small window to choose the Rx and then you open the Rx, then you click send (efax, eRX etc) and then you sign off by inputting your esignature which requires you to eneter your login password TWO TIMES!!! then you assume it sent (which it doesn't always do that) so I always check the RX history which is in ANOTHER window so you have to click out of the current window and open another module! [emoji2959] I just found out that 90% of my scripts have not been sent and had my MA call them in...OY! Not to mention the multiple signal interruptions at IMS Hq that interrupts your note or use of the EMR throughout the day. This am it happened during a televisit and i had to re-initiate the visit 3x...[emoji3517]

SO...I hope you appreciate Cerner a little bit more [emoji38]

 

 

 

 

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I feel your pain.

AllScripts was the same kind of thing. But everything had a drop down and click. I counted one day - it can be over 600 clicks for a single chart. I told a VP that called me one day that he should have to sit next to me while I used it and for every useless click, I get to hit him with a stick. He declined. 

I kept having daydreams of using my laptop as a skeet target; burning it in effigy and dancing around it or winning the lottery and buying an EMR company for the sole purpose of shutting it down.

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16 minutes ago, Reality Check 2 said:

No matter what you use to chart - just make sure you write a cogent, useful note that any of your colleagues or a specialty consult can read and make sense of. 

Screw the EHR, document like the smart PAs we are. 

Do right by the patient.

Until you get a "talking too" for not documenting enough to upcharge

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  • 6 months later...

 

First your institution should have several universal phrases, like ...labs, .xr, .mr, .echo, etc to insert labs, images etc into the record. They can give you a list or you can scan through these by opening the manage autotext button, which is on all the modifiable fields on your M-page (e.g. Subject/History of Present Illness) it is the icon on the far right at the top of those modifiable fields. Wish I could insert photos to this to show you. 

Cerner also has a beautiful feature called Copy Auto Text. You can look into any other established person on your network and can copy their autotexts and then modify them at will. This is on my toolbar on the second line, far right on the line that has my Home option. 

With these two tools, you can set up anything you need. Good luck.

 

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On 3/2/2021 at 10:45 AM, GetMeOuttaThisMess said:

For those of you using Cerner, how many of you have been able to figure out how to access a blank prescription to free note?  It took me three years before I finally figured it out.  Yes, there is a blank script built in to the system.

IIRC, we had a "Misc" under drug name. Then we can free write the Rx. 

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