Has Mobile Technology Changed Nursing and How they Approach Patient Safety?
Image Source: Flickr/Dominik Syka
Traditionally, running a hospital involved a lot of paperwork. Between keeping hundreds, even thousands of medical references on-site and the huge amount of room and upkeep devoted to paper based patient records, much of a hospital’s funds went to moving paperwork around. Improved technology may soon change all of that, with a host of apps intended for medical use.
Medical Records and Prescription Look up
Hospitals work with thousands of patients a day, some of them taking multiple medications, and some who have several diverse medical issues that have to be tracked closely. Keeping all of this information organized and accessible is a full time job in and of itself. Digitizing patient information helps deal with this workload considerably, but for patient safety, it’s necessary to access this information quickly and efficiently. Medical mobile technology allows nurses and other medical professionals to have records, medical references and pharmacy logs at their fingertips.
HIS: Systems for Medical Monitoring
Any large, modern hospital has a comprehensive Hospital Information System, used to keep track of patients and medications. HIS’s also help set hospital policy, and streamline scheduling. Cell phone and tablet apps can be used by doctors to access this information without sending away to the record room. This saves lots of time and resources, allowing hospital staff to focus more on treatment and less on file maintenance. Digitized records are also less likely to be lost or damaged, and creating backups is more feasible than with hard copy files, as it takes up much less room.
Keeping Better Track of Patients
Bar coded patient wristbands can provide access to all of the relevant information for a patient, such as allergies and potential drug interactions, in an easy to scan identification bracelet. Bar Coded Wristbands