The Journal of mHealth Vol 2 Issue 2 (Apr 2015) | Page 35

Nurses Say Medical Errors Could Be Reduced If Devices Were Connected out of three (69 per cent) saying manually transcribing data is very likely to take time away from patients who need attention. “Nurses enter the profession because they want to care for patients, not because they are interested in programming machines,” said Patricia H. Folcarelli, RN, senior director of Patient Safety at the Silverman Institute for Health Care Quality and Safety at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “As many as 10 devices may monitor or treat a single patient in an intensive care unit. The nurse not only has to program and monitor the machines, he or she often spends a significant amount of time transcribing data by hand because the devices are not designed to share information.” Other key survey findings: »» 74 per cent of these nurses (strongly/ somewhat) agreed that it is burdensome to coordinate the data collected by medical devices »» 93 per cent (strongly/somewhat) agreed that medical devices (e.g. monitors, diagnostic devices) should be able to seamlessly share data with one another automatically »» Half (50 per cent) said they have witnessed a medical error because of lack of device coordination “It’s time that we free our healthcare workers to do what they do best and what they are most needed for, which is caring for patients,” Dr. Smith said. “Let’s not ask busy clinicians to do those things that technology can automate easily and effectively. Medical device interoperability can save lives, time and money, and at the same time allow nurses to focus on caring for patients.” The weighted survey was conducted online by Harris Poll from January 7–16, 2015 and included 526 nurses (credentialed at RN or higher and with an education of BSN or higher) who work full– time in a non–school setting. For more information visit www.westhealth.org/igniteinterop n This could be your advertisement Contact Matthew at [email protected] for more details on our advertising packages The Journal of mHealth The Global Voice of mHealth The Journal of mHealth 33