i think terrible thoughts

a big part of getting our electronic health record up and running is data entry - past histories, medication lists, diagnostic lists, surgeries, and on and on. it is a massive project and i am doing most of it myself.  who else could decipher my handwriting? (sometimes even i can't figure out what i wrote.)  down the road, when these patients come back in, it will all be there waiting for me, neat and tidy, in the chart.  future visits will be easier.  that is what keeps me going.  so when i see my 94 year-old patient i think, what is the real return on my investment here?  i'm going to take the time to enter all this data and they might not stick around long enough for me to reap the benefits.  isn't that terrible?  i enter all the data anyway.  what can i say, i'm an optimist.