NASHVILLE, TN – In what is certainly the best medical feel-good story since the patient who asked only for Tylenol for pain back in 2015, a computer at the nurses station has been identified that not only turns on and has a working screen but, get this, it has both a normal-functioning keyboard and mouse. What?!
“This is shocking in the best way possible as this is truly the rarest of rare findings in modern health care,” said charge nurse Catherine Bennett, who made the discovery one hour into her shift. “The screen is on. None of the buttons on the keyboard are sticky, broken, or both; in fact, they all work, even the Space bar and Enter button. Then the mouse,” she moves the mouse back and forth, “moves as it should and both left and right-click buttons work. This truly is astounding.”
Bennett’s findings have been confirmed by several other health care professionals. Even the IT department, who was initially suspicious of the report, found that these details check out. This is the first time they have encountered a health care system computer that “works just fine.”
“It’s the strangest thing,” said hospitalist Jason Bush, who is sitting at this gold standard computer. “Whenever I type or click on something, the computer actually responds the way I want it to. This computer is a unicorn. I can’t believe it!” Streams of tears started to flow from Bush’s eyes. “This computer allows me to be… productive.”
Ask any health care professional and the gold standard work station triad is a working computer, a working keyboard, and a working mouse. As of December 1, 2019, only three of these work stations exist in the entirety of the American health care system, and two of them aren’t even accessible to health care professionals; they are in the offices of hospital administrators.
Even rarer is the gold standard work station quartet: the aforementioned triad plus a chair.
“Could you imagine if we had two, even three computers like this in the nurses station?” asked Bennett. “I know, that would never happen, but one can certainly dream.”
