have seen nurses write down critical medical information about their patients on their hands because the critical information would disappear if the nurse was distracted for a moment by someone asking a question. The electronic medical records systems automatically log out users when the system does not appear to be in use. Why the automatic logouts? To protect patient privacy. The cause may be well motivated, but the action poses severe challenges to nurses who are continually being interrupted in their work by physicians, co-workers, or patient requests. While they are attending to the
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