Features Of A Mobile Solution That Benefit Nurses

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

Nurses are the “critical link” connecting doctors and patients, and savvy IT solutions providers deal in tech solutions that reflect the essential role they play.

Vocera Chief Nursing Officer Rhonda Collins shared with Health IT Outcomes Health IT Voices at HIMSS15 some of the ways IT solutions providers can help address nurses’ challenges and needs.

Beyond BYOD
Communication is core to the job of nurses. In that vein, Collins highlights the fact that 80 percent of all medical errors cite communication as a major contributor to the problem. In the world of tech, text messaging has become an essential component of medical communication, with 67 percent of nurses saying they text on their personal smartphones. This of course, increases risk around security and changes the conversation around what best benefits the patient.

At the same time, according to Collins, most nurses will say that they don’t text at work when asked.

The Hands-Free Answer
If an organization does want to consider mobile solutions for their nurses, they’ll have multiple concerns to tackle including security, platform choices, even hygiene.

Collins emphasizes the fact that any tech solutions need to fit nurses’ needs, which in most cases means software platforms that can accommodate any device including tablets, phones, and hands-free wearables.

“The device you need is always predicated by the patient you’re caring for. If you talk to a nurse, a nurse doesn’t really have time to take off a glove, pull a phone out, wake the phone up. Really, it’s a much easier answer to their solution, to be able to just press a button and talk, because they need to be hands-free, as we would say, in the hands-free environment.”

Vocera advises its customers to look for a platform that will allow them to communicate “in the same nomenclature and in the same environment with the same contacts and in the same solutions, using any device, whether it’s your own device, the BYOD, or a hospital-provided device.”

They also stress hands-free devices to cut back on disease transmission, especially in environments like operating rooms where fragile and critical patients are being treated.