Nurse Communication Technology Improves Patient Care and Efficiency
Communicating in the modern nursing work environment is difficult. In order to provide the best level of patient care, nurses need to be constantly accessible by several sources. At any given time nurses need to be aware of patient and family requests, while maintaining ongoing communication with physicians. In addition, nurses must also keep track of patient conditions that are communicated through mechanical devices such as patient monitors.
Juggling information from these sources is already complex, yet the majority of US hospitals add to the problem by lacking effective communication technology. A study by Forrester Research showed that the inefficient communication methods most nurses are forced to rely on cause major drains on productivity.
A few examples from the study:
“The majority of nurses stated they would save somewhere between 30 minutes to one hour per day with instant access to experts.”
“A sizable percentage of nurses — 65% — said they spent from 20 minutes to more than one hour per day trying to reach other medical staff. This includes 26% that spend more than one hour per day and another 39% that spend from 20 minutes to one hour.”
Regarding elimination of physician-nurse missed communications and phone tag, “estimates of up to one hour per day would be saved by 54% of nurses, and another 26% indicated it would save them from 16 to 30 minutes per day.”
It is no secret that the largest item on the average hospitals expense sheet is employee compensation. Accordingly, this collective drain on nurse productivity adds a big cost for hospitals. What isn’t as obvious is the negative impact poor nurse communications has on patient care.
Aside from time wasted on poor communications that could be spent with patients, inferior communication platforms also lead to more troubling outcomes. Take for example, the fall risk patient who needs to use the restroom and caregivers are too slow to respond to their nurse call request—and arrive only in time to see the patient has fallen while trying to use the restroom by themselves.
Wireless Nurse Communication as a Solution
Current nurse communication problems stem from the fact that most nurses, 78% according to the Forrester Research study, use telephones as their main communication vehicle. Yet the majority of US hospitals rely on wired telephones, even though nurses are highly mobile. As a result, communication breakdown is inevitable.
New nurse communication technology such as Dalcon Alert! provide a wireless solution for the modern hospital. Dalcon Alert!, in tandem with wireless phones, allows nurses to stay in constant contact with patients, staff, and physicians while staying on the move. The Forrester Research study showed that 74% of nurse respondents could save a significant amount of time each day with wireless phones.
In addition to improved productivity, Dalcon Alert! improves patient care by allowing nurses to receive patient care alerts directly on their wireless device. For example, caregivers receive nurse calls, iv-pump alerts, fall alerts and more on their phones.
Decentralized Nursing Stations: A Change for the Better
As hospitals move further into the 21st century, decentralized nursing stations are becoming the standard for enhancing the quality and efficiency of nursing care.
In the past, when medical information was stored on paper, centralized nursing stations were necessary to keep all medical data stored in an easy to access place. However, with the advent of new digital information storage and communication technology, centralized nursing stations have become an increasing burden on the quality of patient care.
The Value of Decentralization
The primary benefit of a well-managed system of decentralized nursing stations is the positive impact the system has on patient care. Having multiple nursing stations located throughout a floor instead of one centrally located station puts nurses in closer proximity to the patients. A result of close nurse-patient proximity is improved nurse response time and room observations.
Also, the close nurse to patient proximity helps hospitals with decentralized nurse stations better prevent never events due to patient falls.
Decentralized nursing stations also save nurses thousands of steps each day traveling back and forth from patient rooms to the central station. Less travel fatigue leads to enhanced quality of care. Also, hospitals with successfully implemented decentralized systems experience lower staff turnover due to improved work satisfaction.
When planning the decentralization process, it is important that nurses retain an area where they can gather and collaborate. Nurses, like many workers, enjoy camaraderie and need to have particular areas allocated for their gathering. Effective nursing requires teamwork, and the social aspect of the job must be respected. Thus, a central nursing workroom is an important part of any decentralized system.
Hospitals looking to incorporate decentralized nursing stations should be prepared to expand their supply inventories since there will be more stations. However, the added cost of expansion will be offset by decreased nursing staff turnover and more efficient workspace.
Importance of Nurse Communication
Communication is a key issue when developing a successful decentralization plan. Because the stations are spread out, effective nurse communications become a more important factor in determining quality of patient care. Communications technology to solve this problem is currently available. Dalcon has multiple communication solutions, including Dalcon Alert!, that can effectively bridge this nurse communication gap by placing wireless phones in the hands of caregiving staff.
Dalcon Alert! is a Remote Patient Monitoring system that places fully functional wireless phones in the hands of caregiving staff. When a patient monitoring device triggers an alert connected to Dalcon Alert!, the system sends a text message to caregivers’ wireless phones so they can respond to the patient immediately. Alerts are simultaneously sent to the PC displays of all nursing stations. The alert is tracked in real time so that caregivers at each station can observe which alerts have been canceled and which have not.
