A Guide to Epic Charting for Nurses

Epic Systems is a top electronic health record (EHR) provider, with software used worldwide to boost efficiency in various healthcare settings. Epic charting not only simplifies nurse documentation worldwide but also reduces medication errors, improves collaboration across all the members of the healthcare team, and can trim charting time by up to 45%.

If you want to find out about all the ins and outs of Epic charting for nurses, this article is for you. We’ll delve into its key features, offer usage tips, and explore how it’s revolutionizing the way nurses deliver top-notch healthcare.

What Is Epic Charting for Nurses?

Epic charting is a cutting-edge EHR software that simplifies nurse documentation and enhances patient care across various healthcare setups. With an intuitive interface and robust functionalities, the Epic charting system for nurses stands out in the following ways:

• It simplifies the documentation process, making it accessible for nurses with varying levels of technical expertise.
• It consolidates patient information, providing a holistic view of medical history, medications, and treatment plans.
• It enables instant updates to patient charts, fostering collaboration among healthcare providers for timely and accurate decision-making.
• Its adaptable templates cater to different nursing specialties, ensuring tailored and efficient documentation.
• It increases efficiency during nurse handover report to reduce communication errors and improve patient safety.

Epic EMR is feature-rich and highly customizable. It can be adapted to various healthcare environments, including but not limited to:

• Hospitals
• Outpatient clinics
• Emergency departments
• Long-term care facilities
• Specialty clinics

Benefits of Epic Nursing Charting

Epic’s simple design, functionality, and adaptability to diverse healthcare settings make it a game changer in today’s technology-powered nursing landscape. The benefits of Epic charting for nurses are backed up by solid research:

• Continuity of care: It allows access to patient history, including interactions with other specialties, consultation notes, and imaging.
• Time efficiency: It allows the use of SmartPhrases and a copy forward feature, providing a more time-efficient means of recordkeeping compared to handwritten notes.
• Error reduction: It helps to minimize safety incidents by highlighting patient allergies, drug interactions, and health conditions in real time.
• Improved collaboration: It enables simultaneous access to records and imaging across different sites or specialties, facilitating instant communication among team members.
• Efficient chart navigation: It allows easy keyword search through historical clinical records, saving time and effort compared to paper-based notes.
• Comprehensive documentation: It creates complete, chronological clinical records, promoting easy analysis of trends in lab values, X-ray results, and more.
• Enhanced security: It offers greater security with intrinsic traceability and transparency.
• Reduced burnout: It can help alleviate burnout in clinical settings by cutting back on charting time.

5 Tips to Use Epic Charting for Nurses

1. Customize Your Nursing Epic Charting Experience

Customizing your EHR for your clinical practice and specialty is crucial for efficient workflow. Tailoring the system with specialty-specific templates and shortcuts streamlines charting, letting you focus on essential details. This adaptability not only promotes a user-friendly experience but also enhances patient care by addressing specific needs in different specialties. Here are some ways you can adapt Epic for your convenience:

• Minimize notifications.
• Create future reminders.
• Perform quick chart searches.
• Use chart filters.
• Use autocorrect.
• Use SmartPhrases.
• Use the copy forward feature.
• Save favorite orders.
• Extend the time before auto-logout.
• Personalize your trackboard.

There might be additional tools available at your workplace that can simplify charting by allowing you to save time inputting and accessing information. Some examples include:

• SmartPhrases lets you easily insert common text chunks into patient notes. For example you could type “.hpipneu” and choose the HPIPNEUMONIAGEN SmartPhrase. In that case, it expands to an auto-populated template designed for pneumonia.
• SmartLists allows you to convert information from a list into a chart.
• NoteWriter Macros enables point-and-click documentation.
• SmartText allows you to pull data automatically from other Epic sections into your note, including the patient’s chief complaint, name, age, sex, prior history, vital signs, results, diagnoses, and more.
• Reporting workbench allows you to customize patient-level details for reports.
• SlicerDicer allows you to examine trends over extended periods, like monthly changes in patient volume over several years.
• CareEverywhere allows you to view patient information from other Epic organizations.
• Messaging tabs allow the care team to discuss patients directly inside the patient chart, without worrying about HIPAA or privacy issues, through one-on-one messaging and group chats.

These tools may be particularly applicable in acute care settings, where every second counts and the charting process needs to be especially quick yet accurate. That’s why Epic charting for ER nurses often includes these features.

2. Optimize Your Proficiency With EHR Technology

Get more efficient with your EHR by learning more about its functions. Remember, the EHR can be intimidating for even the most technologically savvy individual, so don’t try to master it all at once. Start with easy wins that can save you time, like setting up autocorrect for note-writing and using standing order sets for common orders. Here are some ways you can master nursing Epic charting:

• Take free Epic training modules for nurses.
• Retake your company’s Epic charting system training.
• Use an Epic charting cheat sheet for nurses.

3. Use EpicShare

Explore EpicShare, which is a platform that features insights from healthcare leaders and tips for getting the most value from your Epic EHR. By engaging in this feature, nurses can tap into a wealth of knowledge, learn from the experiences of industry experts, and gain practical guidance to optimize their use of Epic.

4. Join Epic UserWeb

The Epic UserWeb is available for all nurses using this program. It offers useful resources like education materials, upcoming webinars, downloadable system content, community forums, and support documentation. Don’t miss out on this tool.

5. Reach Out for Support

If you have issues with Epic charting for nurses, ask your managers to allow you to access your organization’s training or supplemental materials. Most healthcare organizations provide access to the training platform, called Epic Playground, when hiring new nurses. You may also be able to ask a mentor or coworker for their best tips or tricks. Additionally, you can contact Epic for questions and concerns.

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