Your Healthcare IT Clients' Nurses Tie Device Coordination To Medical Error Reduction

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

Selling the concept of device connectivity to organizational decision makers is all about tying benefits to the realistic needs of your clients. A survey from the Gary And Mary West Health Institute has connected with 500 nurses to bring you some insight.

According to the survey, half of the responding nurses indicated that they had witnessed a medical error due to a lack of informational sharing between devices. In an environment where more than 400,000 Americans die annually from preventable medical errors, leveraging the benefits of a tailored device-connection solution is invaluable.

The Devices

Healthcare overall is beginning to understand all the benefits that medical devices bring with them. At the same time though, they can increase risks for patients, and increase provider frustration when they do not properly and efficiently connect.

Devices include:

• pulse oximeters
• infusion pumps
• blood pressure cuffs
• EHRs
• ventilators

The Nurses

The 526 nurses questioned were credentialed at RN level or higher, and educated at a level of BSN or more and worked in full-time, non-school settings. Nurses, due to their constant proximity to patient care, frequently have insight that doctors do not.

Dr. Joseph Smith, chief medical and science officer at West Health Institute explains,

“Nurses are the front line of patient care and have an unrivaled ability to identify and address problems at the intersection of patients and technology. The survey helps show how much of a nurse’s time could be better spent in direct care of patients and families, and how errors could be potentially avoided if medical devices, which have been so successful at improving patient care, were able to take the next step and seamlessly share critical information around the patient’s bedside.”

Interoperability On A Small Scale

Medical device interoperability is theorized to provide benefits including improved patient safety and better clinical outcomes, all while reducing costs. West Health estimated that a system of connected devices could save over $30 billion annually by cutting back on manual work, transcription errors, and reducing redundant testing.

According to a separate survey (“Missed Connections: A Nurses Survey On Interoperability And Improved Patient Care”) almost half of the nurses questioned said they believed an error is extremely, or very likely to occur as a result of manual transcription between devices. An anonymous nurse responded, “I have seen many instances where numbers were incorrectly transcribed or put in reverse or put in the wrong column when typed manually, which can cause errors.”

Going Deeper

To read more on the use of mobile devices in healthcare, access our library of informational resources on the topic.