Since they are now basically typing up their own orders that frees up the nurses from having to do it as in the past. So why is it you can never find a nurse on a floor when you need one? They used to spend half their shift at their station scribing doctors orders now what are they doing?
They’re slowly being consolidated with and eventually replaced by physician assistants.
That was a bit snarky. I can assure you that no floor nurse I know.... ever spent half their day "scribing doctors orders"....but rather "performing them". The 10yrs I spent on the floor in hospital, I RAN for the entire 12hrs...rarely got lunch or potty breaks and spent at least 1hr on computer finishing up nurse notes for the day.
Nurses are require to document every procedure performed and the condition of each patient every 2 hrs, what happened, what was said, etc. 13hrs was a good day without emergencies. I can't tell you how many times I spent more than 14hrs filling out incident reports and cleaning up after emergencies, having meetings, etc. Then you get to go home, wave at the kids, fall into bed so the process could start all over again the next day.
Though I believe every patient is important.... it's sometimes difficult to persuade every patient they aren't the only one you're taking care of. Nurse to patient ratios are not good and if someone calls in sick, you're toast. It's a tough job and not for the faint of heart.