Improving Workflow: Enhancing Nursing Productivity Through Mobile Computing Solutions

Jeffrey Chochinov, director of global business development, Rubbermaid Medical Solutions

A look at how mobile computing and medication administration workstations can simplify nursing workflows and improve patient care.

It is often the simplest concepts that make the biggest differences in patient care. Nursing workflow is a prime example. Requiring nurses to walk back and forth to a nursing station, supply room or medication room dozens of times every shift does not improve nursing productivity or enhance patient care. Enabling nurses to spend more time at a patient's bedside, however, does both.

Mobile computing and medication delivery workstations can greatly simplify nursing workflows, lending greater efficiency to patient care processes by bringing powerful information technologies — including electronic health and medication administration records (EHR and eMAR) — as well as secure medication storage to the bedside. Studies have shown that making full use of these mobile solutions significantly improves patient care and patient safety

For example, a mobile medication cabinet linked to a bar code point-of-care medication administration system piloted at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center in South Carolina increased nurses' time for face-to-face patient interaction, documentation and other productive patient care activities by 28 percent. This was achieved largely by loading most medications needed at the beginning of each shift into a secure mobile cabinet, thus eliminating the need for nurses to queue at the medication room. It also greatly reduced the incidence of late medication administration, which was a particular problem at the beginning of shifts.

More recently, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that a bar code medication administration system reduced medication errors by half — and virtually eliminated medication documentation errors. Similarly, documentation of vital signs and other clinical observations and processes at the bedside has been shown to increase the accuracy and timeliness of care notes.

Our own analysis suggests that for nurses caring for six patients, trips for charting and medication retrieval can be reduced by 90 percent or more using mobile systems instead of fixed, centralized stations. Not only do mobile systems optimize nursing workflow, but they also keep medication secure all the way to the patient. Access This Content To Read This Article In Its Entirety.