Do you use one of those COWs and walk around pushing it into patients rooms, or do you go back and forth between patients rooms and a desktop?
Is your general workflow see 1 patient, put in orders, dictate, see another patient and so forth...or will you see two or three patients at a time, then sit down and put in all the orders and make the charts?
No, we tried using COWs at one time but I got such a back ache toting those things around. I don't use them anymore.
Honestly, I typically will put in orders based on the CC and triage notes if it's straightforward. I rarely need to change my chest pain, n-v-d, female belly pain, syncope, dizziness, etc.. order sets. I can always add or delete after I see them but at least it gets the ball rolling. If I'm not doing that, I like to enter orders after every 1-2 pt's I've seen. I'll grab the closest workstation and put them in, scan the board, pick up more pt's, see what's pending on some of my other ones and then go see 1-2 more. I like to dictate on average every 3rd patient, but sometimes I'll see 4-5 without starting charts though I don't like to go over 5. I knock out HPI, ROS, PE and if I have a good sense of the dx, I'll even fill that in too along with discharge instructions and even prescriptions. Anytime an EKG tech brings me an EKG, I enter some annotated abbreviations in the comments field of Cerner next to the pt's name so I can remember it later when transcribing into the chart. I have macros for ROS and PE and smartphrases for components in my MDM or other fields. The only components that I'm really dictating are HPI and MDM.
I'm disciplined about making sure that I completely finish each discharged pt's chart. It takes a few extra seconds but ensures that I never get behind. So, when I click the discharge order, I'm also providing a final signature on the chart. Admissions get admitted and I'll generally complete those in the next few minutes also before I get up to see anyone else. I'm really OCD about it.
2.2pph is a great pace though if that's what you're doing. Keep in mind that so many things are dependent on the department and not the physician. In general, we are a very little part of the throughput issues in spite of what nursing management would like to have admin believe. Things like having enough techs, nurses, optimal nursing/pt ratios, timely blood draws, radiology, transport, etc.. All these things can make a huge difference in not only how quickly we can see pt's, but also how many we can see in a single shift.
I've found that since going without a scribe, I spend less time dictating to them (and correcting or educating them) and more time dictating into my microphone.