LNCtips.com: The Typewriter LNC

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was in college and personal computers didn't exist.  When I wrote a report back then, I used a certain method to type my reports on a typewriter.  Fast forward to the present - personal computers have been in existence for decades.  Why then do some LNCs review records and create reports as if they're still using a typewriter?

In college, I frequently hand wrote my answers to assignments, an acceptable practice back then.  However, when I needed to create a typewritten report, I used a certain method.  I have always wished that I could type a report with complete sentences and paragraphs from the introduction to the conclusion.  Unfortunately, I've never been able to do that because concepts are all jumbled in my mind.  The concepts make perfect sense in my brain, but they have never flowed in a logical manner when I tried to type them.

The method that I used was this: first, I gathered and reviewed the information that I needed for my report.  Next, I hand wrote key words and concepts on a tablet of paper.  After that, I formulated sentences and paragraphs and hand wrote them on the tablet of paper.  When a sentence or paragraph seemed out of order, I cut it out and taped it to an area where it fit better.  My handwritten reports had many corrections and pieces of tape on them.  When I had everything in the order that I wanted, I typed the report.

I remembered this process a few years ago when the law firm where I work hired a very seasoned LNC.  One day, one of the attorneys asked the LNC to provide a report on a newborn's head circumference, and to have the report ready in three hours.  The LNC frantically reviewed medical records, wrote the information neatly on a piece of paper and handed the paper to the attorney.  The attorney accepted the report, but politely told the LNC that he would never accept a handwritten report again.

The next time an attorney asked for another report, the LNC provided a typed one using a computer.  However, the process she used was almost exactly like the ancient method I had used in college.  The LNC reviewed the records, jotting information on a tablet of paper.  After compiling all the information, the LNC hand wrote sentences and paragraphs on sheets of paper.  After that, she cut and taped sections of the paper.  Once she had things in the format and order she wanted, she typed all of her handwritten information into the computer.

In my mind, I called this legal nurse consultant the typewriter LNC because the process she used reminded me of my college days using an old manual typewriter.  The process she used was not only old-fashioned, it was time consuming as well.  It took her two to three times as long to produce the report as it would have if she had typed the report at the same time that she reviewed the medical records.  It's easy and so much quicker to use a computer to turn a jotted note into a sentence and to cut and paste sentences into paragraphs.

I remembered that I too had used the same method as the typewriter nurse when I first started using a computer.  It wasn't until I stopped to think about the process that I realized that I could work in a different, more efficient way.  It was a vivid reminder that the "We've always done it this way" mentality is as detrimental to legal nurse consulting as it was when I worked as a staff nurse.

...Katy Jones