Growing Trends in Smartphone Usage Among Nurses
A recent study performed by InCrowd reported that nurses use their smartphones to help improve patient care. Similarly, iHealth Beat conducted a survey that yielded 95 percent of nurses owned a smartphone, and 88 percent of them used mobile applications to complement their daily routines in clinical care.
95 percent of nurses owned a smartphone, and 88 percent of them used mobile applications to complement their daily routines in clinical care.
The use of smartphones enables nurses to access drug information, clinical data, drug interaction information, as well as to research various diseases and disorders more easily. 69 percent of the respondents reported using smartphones to keep in touch with their coworkers. Additionally, they are able to engage and attend to their patients’ medical needs, due to the faster rate of accessing the patients’ information. Setting timers for administering medication and receiving photos of a rash are just some of the daily nursing tactics that are made easier by smartphones. IBM’s chief nursing officer, Judy Murphy, believes that “there’s a lot of untapped potential in the use of mobile apps for nursing.”
More than half of the nurse respondents reported using their smartphone as a time-saving effort to access information for unfamiliar illnesses or symptoms, in lieu of asking their colleagues.
The study also found that more than half of the nurse respondents reported using their smartphone as a time-saving effort to access information for unfamiliar illnesses or symptoms, in lieu of asking their colleagues. Most of the hospital staff attend to more than one patient at any given time, therefore using a smartphone to access the information needed makes everything easier.
The popularity of using smartphones in hospitals is increasing, even when employers don’t cover the nurses’ phone bills. According to the study, roughly 9 percent of nurses have their monthly bills reimbursed by the employer, and only 1 percent receive coverage for the smartphone that they use. Out of all this, 3 percent reported that both the cost of the smartphone and their monthly bills are reimbursed by their employer. The amount of employers who prohibit the use of smartphones by nurses is even lower, at less than 1 percent.
TINE is a platform that is focused on augmenting medical devices with short video training content, to deliver “Just in Time Training” for nurses in hospitals.
“Just in time training” is training that designed to reinforce classroom knowledge and is delivered just before a procedure is started, minimizing the time between training and procedure, thus reducing preventable medical error rates while promoting patient safety.
Article Sources:
