LOS ANGELES, CA – A new stone & chisel medical record system implemented by hospital administrators at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center earlier this week is drawing the ire of health care professionals, calling it “ridiculous,” “exhausting,” “tiring,” and a “huge pain in the ass.”
“We’re burning out in record numbers,” explained hospitalist David Farmer, who has been working on a discharge summary for the past week. He’s only completed one sentence and lost 10 lbs. in the process despite the forearm hypertrophy. He also has intense back spasms with regularity and calloused, bloody hands. “I cannot lift my own note. That’s a problem.”
Citing a New Year’s resolution to “make health care providers more inefficient than ever,” Cedar-Sinai administrators decided that the best way to slow them down is by increasing the labor intensiveness of medical documentation. They believe each “page” of documentation should be “8 by 11.5 feet, no smaller” with “legible chiseling.”
So far it has worked. Several dozen of health care providers have developed failure to chisel and were subsequently sent to hospice. And thus far, only 3 doctors have been crushed to death by falling documentation.
“Have you ever tried to use a stone and chisel for any reason?” asked administrator Christian Blacksuit. “It’s exhausting. Which is why it is perfect.” From his luxurious office with a gorgeous view of L.A., Blacksuit went on to remind providers that “these new medical records need to be thorough and neat” but also to “keep the noise down, because that’s just rude to the patients.”
When asked if medical providers can implement the use of scribes, Blacksuit simply laughed. “That defeats the purpose! The key to my happiness is making health care providers unhappy. Don’t you get that?”
As it stands, hospital administrators have provided their medical personnel with polished, pre-made stones on which to chisel but are rethinking this process. “Eventually, we’ll make them quarry their own stone,” said Blacksuit. “But I’ll go easy on them for now.”
