White Paper: Mobilizing Patient Care. Mobile Solutions Are a Game Changer for Hospital-Based Nurses

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1 White Paper: Mobilizing Patient Care Mobile Solutions Are a Game Changer for Hospital-Based Nurses

2 intro: Mobile Solutions Are a Game Changer Emerging mobile and wearable technology solutions are making inroads with hospital-based nurses nationwide to transform how patient care is practiced and delivered at the bedside. This white paper describes how nurses are using mobile technologies to streamline clinical communications, improve quality of care, and enhance patient engagement. It also identifies the hospital IT infrastructure improvements required to support mobile end users and protect patient data. Mobile Technology Transforms Patient Care Nurses are the single largest healthcare professional group in the United States with 1.86 million registered members working in hospitalbased environments. As mobile professionals, they are continuously on the move caring for patients, coordinating care with team members, and educating patients and family members about their conditions and treatments. They have a constant need for direct and immediate communications with colleagues and patients, as well as real-time access to patient data at point of care. 1 Mobile technologies including smartphones, tablets and wearables are transforming how hospital-based nurses practice and deliver patient care at the bedside. These technologies are replacing fixed location computers, pagers, and landline phones as the preferred platform for securely accessing patient data and communicating with care team members from any location and at any time. A Spyglass Consulting Group report found 67 percent of hospitals surveyed have staff nurses widely using personal smartphones during normal work hours to support patient care. Personal devices are used because nurses are dissatisfied with the technology options provided by hospital IT to address their computing and communications needs, which they find, are inconvenient, difficult to use, and have limited functionality. 2 Technological innovation and advancements are improving the availability, functionality, and quality of mobile devices and applications. Nurses are applying increasing pressure on hospital IT to provide them with mobile solutions integrated with existing clinical information systems, biomedical devices, and the nurse call system. With the emergence of patient centered care models and valuebased purchasing, hospital IT has an imperative to evaluate and make investments in secure enterprise-class mobile solutions. These solutions must address the needs of nurses requiring real-time communications and collaboration tools to support team-based care within the hospital and across the community. 67% of hospitals have nurses using personal smartphones for patient care.

3 Right Mobile Device for the Right Clinical Task Nurses require a mobile platform that provides a consistent end user experience across different devices including smartphones, tablets, and wearable technologies. They must have the flexibility to select the right mobile device for the right clinical task to streamline workflow and efficiency. The right device is dependent upon a number of factors including clinical tasks performed, application complexity, healthcare environment, form factor and personal preferences. Mobile devices used on a nursing unit must be intuitive and easy to use light weight, and convenient to carry durable enough to sustain multiple drops easily cleaned and disinfected exceptional battery life and quickly chargeable Smaller devices such as a smartphone provides immediacy and convenience well suited for communicating with care team members receiving clinical notifications and alerts collecting vital signs reviewing lab results identifying patients for medication administration Larger devices such as a tablet are well suited at the bedside for accessing the patient s electronic medical record generating structured clinical documentation viewing diagnostic images educating patients about their condition researching health-related information Emerging wearable technologies such as smartwatches provide at-a-glance capabilities that may be ideal for quickly scanning through abbreviated messages, notifications and alerts. If anything requires immediate attention, nurses can step aside and pull out their smartphone for increased contextual information. Mobile Solutions Streamline Clinical Communications Nurses require a mobile platform to streamline clinical communications, improve care team collaboration, and enhance care coordination to support population health initiatives across the healthcare continuum. The Joint Commission, the nation s predominant standardssetting and accrediting body, identified the primary root cause of more than 70 percent of treatment delays and sentinel events as being caused by a breakdown in communications. They also identified improved staff communications as a National Patient Safety Goal for hospitals in Mobile devices integrated with the hospital s unified communications system enables the nurse to use voice, text messaging, , and mobile apps to communicate the right patient data, at the right time, to the right team member, and in the right format to improve care team collaboration regardless of their physical location. Key mobile unified communications capabilities include: VoIP integration that enables a nurse to use a mobile device to communicate with care team members through the hospital s PBX over the WLAN. Accessible PBX features include extension dialing, conferencing calling, company directory, and call transfer. Secure text messaging that allows a nurse to exchange secure HIPAA-compliant text messages to support patient care or address administrative responsibilities. Text messaging is less intrusive than a telephone call, which could interrupt a colleague who may be in the middle of performing a medical treatment or procedure. Video conferencing that empowers a nurse to arrange virtual face-to-face consultations with physicians, medical specialists and other care team members who may be located in different geographic locations. Unified contact directory that supports a nurse to access upto-date contact information for colleagues, care team members and administrative staff. With presence management features, nurses can identify a team member s availability and willingness to communicate.

4 Mobile Solutions improve Care Quality and Outcomes Nurses require a mobile platform to improve patient care quality and outcomes. Real-Time Patient Data Access. Nurses must have access to clinical data to make informed critical care decisions and document patient care. Unfortunately, nurses are constantly on the move as they go from bed-to-bed taking care of their assigned patients and they do not always have access to a desktop computer, a computer-on-wheels (COW), or a bedside terminal, which may lead to medical errors in the care process, as well as waste precious time. Mobile solutions integrated with the Electronic Health Record (EHR) can improve clinical decision-making while streamlining nursing workflow. Nurses can use a mobile device to generate progress notes, collect vital signs and I/O, review lab results, or access medical reference. If the mobile device s screen is too small, nurses can wirelessly dock the device to a full size keyboard and monitor to access the patient s full medical record, document a full headto-toe assessment, or view diagnostic quality images. Clinical Notifications and Alerts. Nurses are experiencing alert/alarm fatigue by the sheer volume of bells, rings, beeps and buzzers generated by different medical devices at point of care. Frequent false and nuisance alarms cause nurses to ignore alarms or lower their volume, which can negatively affect patient care and safety. Nurses can use a mobile device to receive text-based notifications if a patient s condition deteriorates or becomes life threatening requiring immediate action. Alarms, vital signs, and wave strips provide the nurse with adequate context to determine the most appropriate response to stabilize the patient. Clinical alerts can be redirected to other qualified care team members or a supervisor if the primary nurse does not respond within a specified period. Bar Coding Medication Administration. The majority of adverse drug events can be attributed to inadequate availability of drug and patient information at the time of ordering. Secondarily they are attributed to a failure to accurately verify the medication dose and patient identity. Medication errors are blamed for about 7,000 deaths annually. A medication error can cost a hospital $2,000 to $4,000, without factoring in the malpractice costs that could be involved with errors that are more serious. Mobile devices with integrated bar code scanners can support positive identification applications such as bar coding medication administration. These solutions support medication management by assisting in detecting medications that have not been prescribed for a patient and alert nurses when the dose they are about to deliver does not match the medical order or is not yet due. 70% $ of treatment delays and sentinel events are caused by communication breakdowns A medication error can cost a hospital up to $4,000 without factoring in the malpractice costs

5 Mobile Solutions enhance Patient Satisfaction and Engagement Nurses require a mobile platform to enhance patient satisfaction and engage patients in the care process. Patient Education. Nurses can assist in the education of patients about their medical condition(s), treatment plans, prescribed medications, and discharge instructions during bedside encounters. Peer reviewed research finds that patients who understand their condition and care plan are less likely to be readmitted or visit the emergency department after discharge. Nurses can provide the patient with a mobile device with access to on-demand educational content so that they can view prescribed educational video and listen to recorded discharge instructions. Nurse Call Integration. Nurses are responsible for addressing patient s urgent and non-urgent needs. Hospital-based patients often communicate with the nurse through the nurse call system. When a patient presses the nurse call button located near the bed, a red light is illuminated above the patient s hallway door and/or a signal alert is sent to the nurse s station. The nurse or nursing assistant will respond to the nurse call request by visiting the patient s room when time permits. Mobile devices integrated with the hospital s nurse call system can allow nurses to receive text-based alerts on their device when the patient hits the call bell notifying them of the patient s name, room number, and alert type. Nurses can also use their mobile device to call the patient s bedside phone to qualify the patient s service request.

6 Mobile Solutions require Robust Infrastructure to Protect Patient Data Hospital IT requires mobile infrastructure investments to support mobile end users, protect patient data, and ensure regulatory compliance. Hospitals operate within a highly regulated environment. Unprotected mobile devices may introduce malicious attacks, malware and viruses to the hospital s infrastructure, which could lead to performance degradation and potential security breaches. A recent HIPAA Omnibus Ruling (March 2013) indicates that hospitals found guilty of data breaches can be fined upwards of $1.5 million per incident. A Spyglass Consulting Group report found that 56 percent of hospitals interviewed expressed concerns that staff nurses using personal smartphones were not adequately protecting their devices. Seventy-one percent of these organizations also indicated that they lacked network management and mobile device management tools to monitor, manage, and support mobile users, devices and applications on the network. Hospital IT must define enterprisewide mobile usage policies and deploy infrastructure technologies to manage staff nurses who are using hospital-owned or personally owned (BYOD) mobile devices to support patient care. These policies and procedures will enable hospital IT to communicate who can use mobile technologies on the hospital s network, which devices, operating systems and applications can be used, and how these technologies must be secured, managed and monitored. Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions enable hospital IT to secure, monitor, manage and support mobile devices connected to the wireless LAN. Overthe-air application distribution, sandboxing to remotely wipe patient data from mobile devices and the ability to remotely configure mobile devices are part of any mobile strategy Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is another option that allows hospitals to restrict mobile access to clinical desktop applications through a thin client ensuring patient data is not stored on the device. Conclusion Smartphones, tablets and wearable technologies are gaining traction with hospital-based nurses nationwide to transform how patient care is practiced and delivered at the bedside. These solutions are rapidly replacing fixed location computers and landline phones as the preferred platform for securely accessing patient data and communicating with care team members regardless of their physical location. Despite advancements and innovation in mobile devices and unified communications, hospital IT has underinvested in these technology solutions to support collaborative-team-based care. New patient-centered care models and value-based purchasing have created an imperative for hospital IT to evaluate and invest in secure enterprise-class mobile solutions and infrastructure. Learn more: samsung.com/healthcare SAMSUNG SAM4BIZ Follow us: 2015 Samsung Electronics America, Inc. All rights reserved. Samsung is a registered trademark of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. All products, logos and brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. This white paper is for informational purposes only. Samsung makes no warranties, express or implied, in this white paper. WHP-HC-MOBILIZINGPATIENTCARE-OCT15J