New uses for wireless technology

Abstract

Clinicians stay connected with tools that offer real-time data, including personal digital assistants, patient care robots, network voice communication badges, and telehealth. Protecting patient safety while alleviating the nursing shortage’s impact tops health care leaders’ concerns. Increasingly, nurses turn to creative means such as information technology (IT) to help them provide quality care efficiently. In a 2003 survey by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, all 247 respondents agree that technology can address patient safety issues, and 93% believe that reducing medication errors is the best use of technology. 1 But respondents differ regarding the degree to which specific care elements benefit. More than half of respondents (54%) believe that technology saves excessive time on administrative tasks, but less than half feel that technology positively impacts care quality (42%) and care variability (40%). And, interestingly, only 8% think that technology can address staffing shortages. 2 EVOLVING OPTIONS Wireless technology uses radio signals, not hardwired systems, to transmit data. “Wireless” implies that the system is always connected and that the data are in real time, which is appropriate and necessary for use in health care. Wireless technology enables mobile caregivers, such as nurses and physicians, to have access to data wherever and whenever it’s needed. Personal digital assistants (PDAs), robots, telehealth apparatus, pagers, telephones, tablet computers and subnotebook computers (smaller, lighter portable computers), smart telephones, wireless networks, mobile hardware peripherals, and all related software are pieces of the wireless puzzle. Using this technology, clinicians will soon be able to access the patient’s entire electronic health record without leaving the bedside; functionality also includes integration of point-of-care testing, telemetry, documentation, charting, referencing, and paging. Although the hardware and the software are evolving, many solutions are currently available. Applications for wireless technology in health care enable clinicians to make and access: ♦ interdisciplinary consultations ♦ electronic orders and diagnostic test results ♦ patient histories ♦ progress notes ♦ assessments ♦ nursing and medical reference databases ♦ protocols ♦ prescription generation ♦ insurance information. Personal digital assistants Use of these devices in nursing has increased in recent years. A small, informal survey of informatics nurses—who focus on the use of information management in health care—found that approximately one fourth own personal digital assistants (PDAs) and that the prime use in the clinical environment is for drug referencing. 3 Other PDA uses include prescription writing by physicians and other providers, charge capture, research, patient education, daily schedule access, memo writing, voice dictation, photography, drug calculations, laboratory work orders, and clinical trials. Drug and other popular nursing references are also available in PDA versions. One publisher offers a package of reference materials that allows a user to select a certain drug with the option of then directly connecting to information about the disease in another reference. In addition to granting access to word processed documents, spreadsheets, and presentation materials, PDAs enable nurses to use database software to create health-related applications. A Baltimore nurse uses his PDA to carry data regarding patients on transplant waiting lists, enabling him immediate data access for emergency purposes at any time or location. The Visiting Nurses Association (VNA) Home Health System of Santa Ana, Calif., uses a forms development tool to track patients and to document care. All required data are collected on PDAs and uploaded or downloaded from the nurses’ homes or the VNA office. Charting that once took place after hours is now performed during the nurses’ shifts—a factor that the V