it takes over an hour to complete omh's 725 admissions date and 116 discharge data using mhars system. it use to take less then ten minutes when done by hand. when it comes to these two forms the mhars system goes hay wire . for instance once the system would not let me enter a persons birth day and it took took four minutes to scroll back to the 1950s to enter the data. other times it simply won't allow me to enter anything. Also there are no codes listed for medical diagnosis which means scrambling around for the information to complete the report.

I know the reports are important, but the staff who use to enter the data and now charged with speeding the process up have been of little help. the standard advice is to log off and then log on to redo what has been started. mean while the time and effort used to to this task is taken away from the people we are supposed to help.

it would be easer to use an old fashion punch card system and since the grade of those doing it now is higher then those who did it in the past cheaper to do. at meetings every one has the same complaints. the heads of the psych center are also aware of the problem.

Is the omh headquarters in albany aware of this issue? if so can they help correct the problem? I became a mental health professional not a data enter specialist.