The nation’s nursing scarcity exhibits no indicators of slowing — which implies healthcare suppliers should stay dedicated to discovering modern, tech-enabled methods to cut back nurses’ burnout and stress ranges.
One well being system — Sentara Well being, which operates 12 hospitals throughout Virginia and North Carolina — has been leveraging iPhones to assist enhance nurses’ job satisfaction. Over the previous 12 months or so, the well being system has invested $11 million into 4,900 iPhones, that are at present being utilized by 10,550 nurses throughout 11 of Sentara’s hospitals.
Amy Rosa, Sentara’s chief nursing informatics officer, stated that this venture is already proving to be effectively well worth the expense.
The nurses’ iPhones might seem like common smartphones, however Sentara has configured them to be safe and HIPAA-compliant. They don’t have entry to social media, cell service, video games or the App Retailer, and no knowledge is saved on these units. When a nurse docks their cellphone on the finish of their shift, the gadget is mechanically wiped, Rosa defined.
One of many major advantages of the telephones is that they make it simpler for nurses to speak with numerous care group members throughout the well being system, she famous.
“Talking from the viewpoint of a bedside nurse, I’ll should have the variety of the respiratory therapist on name or the bodily therapist on name. By way of this platform, the record of parents is maintained automatedly, so we’re in a position to talk with these groups quicker and extra effectively than ever earlier than,” Rosa declared.
This eliminates the necessity for a number of units like walkie-talkies, fundamental telephones and pagers, she stated.
One other advantage of the telephones is that they assist nurses are inclined to sufferers’ wants extra rapidly. Many hospitals have bells and lights that go off exterior a affected person’s room to let their nurse know that they want consideration — however with the addition of Sentara’s smartphones, that notification goes straight to a nurse’s pocket, Rosa identified.
Sentara’s smartphones additionally permit nurses to rapidly entry their sufferers’ medical data. Rosa famous the telephones have saved every nurse a median of 78 steps per shift as a result of every part they want when it comes to affected person data is at all times at their fingertips.
She additionally defined that real-time entry makes for safer and quicker decision-making, equivalent to reviewing lab outcomes earlier than a drugs is run.
Along with offering nurses with the data they want, the telephones additionally allow them to gather knowledge in real-time as an alternative of getting to enter the data into a pc. As an illustration, the telephones can scan medicines and labs, in addition to take footage of wounds.
Medicine scanning is a course of meant to make sure the appropriate remedy is run to the appropriate affected person on the proper dose, time and route — it entails scanning barcodes on the affected person’s wristband in addition to the remedy packaging. Sentara’s cell phones change wall-mounted scanners, making it simpler to carry out duties like IV bag scanning immediately on the bedside and decreasing pointless motion and steps, Rosa famous.
Sentara’s nurses have scanned medicines about 157,000 occasions utilizing the brand new cellular course of, she stated.
“That’s tripling our common earlier than this [new mode of] measurement. What’s vital to grasp right here is that the remedy scanning course of is a security measure,” Rosa remarked. “After we say now we have tripled our common of utilizing that course of in amassing labs, meaning we’re tripling our common of creating our lab assortment safer.”
The truth that nurses can doc care instantly on their telephones additionally minimizes errors and helps assure up-to-date data for physicians, she added.
General, Rosa thinks smartphones are a “fantastic addition” to any nurse’s workflow — and that extra well being methods ought to take into consideration rolling out a cell phone program like Sentara’s.
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