I am a QR code!

This is what life is reduced to with modern technology in the hospitals these days. However, it does acknowledge individuality. Sort of.

Each hospital makes its own version of the slimy plastic ID band for your wrist. You are not a person until you have it. Nothing shall be done without it. It is KING.

For ease of work flow I have learned to adjust the code’s placement on my wrist. The quicker the nurse can scan it, the faster I get what I need. Sugar needs testing, need pain medication, had a poop, need a change on my diet, it doesn’t matter. Nothing gets done without starting with a QR code scan.

What would happen if those data base servers went down?

I suggested the possibility to one of my night nurses, and the color drained right out of her face. She gave me the hex sign, and since she has a wicked sense of humor, she added I’d be burned at the stake for even having the thought.

So, even here, everything has come down to having the right QR code. To my very existence being dependent on that little blob of pixilation on my wrist band. I guess I must bow down and worship it. We don’t even want it to get the idea we cannot function without it.

I dream about them marching row upon row and piling up on me as I sleep. The information contained, smothering my brain, until little dots of black ink spill from my tear ducts in a rain of thought ash.

I have to admit, the possibility of un-tracked mistakes happening with my care is slim to none, but at the same time, if the computer gets a hair-brained idea, it is almost impossible to correct it. The data entry clerk who creates the file is the crux of almost any problem. Unfortunately, this is often a tired doctor at the end of a very long day. And since the program which assists him is flawed, double checking is imperative.

Guess what? I’m the double check. Listen up people, you had better have a good advocate. I hope you have a trusted soul on your side who knows what is going on and can stand up to a computer that thinks it knows better. Because the nursing staff of the front line? They can’t. Their hands are tied by medical red tape stronger than any you have ever seen before.

Sigh…. The double edged sword of using the wonderfully advanced technology we have. At least we are no longer cutting down the trees which counter climate change in order to make the reams of paper this used to take. Hang on the positives. It’s all that makes getting through this new fangled way of life possible.

And accept the fact: You are a QR code. I am a QR code. No way to deny it anymore.