Research has shown that staff nurses without PDAs often seek information away from the bedside and that the most common source of information is nursing colleagues, who may or may not provide evidence-based advice. However, nurses using PDAs are far more likely to state that evidence-based practice guidelines are available to them versus those who do not (Doran & Mylopoulos, 2008). Physicians using PDAs have stated that the devices have increased their use of evidence-based practice (Hauser et al., 2007) and that the speed in which information could be obtained was critical to incorporating evidence at the point of care (Honeybourne, Sutton, & Ward, 2006).

Reducing Medication Errors

  Medication errors are a serious threat to patient safety in healthcare systems worldwide. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada has declared this to be a major public health issue (ISMP, 2001). In the United States, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention (NCC MERP), work diligently to identify the etiology of medication errors and to produce recommendations to prevent future errors. Research has shown that while errors may occur in any of the stages of the medication process, most errors occur in the ordering (56%) and administration stages (34%) (Bates et al.,1995). The following discussion will focus on the administration stage because it is a staff nursing function.

  PDAs have the potential to reduce medication errors by providing a portable and convenient reference source for healthcare providers. Research into the etiology of medication errors has indicated that most errors occur due to lack of knowledge of patients’ clinical status and/or lack of knowledge of the medications being prescribed (Leape et al., 1995). However, with the rate at which new medication information is being produced, the IOM acknowledges that it is almost impossible for healthcare providers to have current knowledge of every medication they encounter. Therefore the IOM recommends a point-of-care reference source such as a PDA for all healthcare providers (Institute of Medicine, 2007).

  PDAs can also decrease the amount of time that nurses spend seeking information about medications. A study has shown that nurses using PDAs are just as accurate and significantly more efficient than nurses researching medications in a text (Greenfield, 2007). This study was timed with nursing students sitting at a desk with either a PDA or a drug reference text in their hands. In the hospital setting time is lost when nurses must leave the medication carts or bedside areas to walk to the reference text locations. Thus, as well as being able to use their medication references more efficiently, nurses using PDAs would gain additional time by having the medication references on their PDAs with them at all times. Furthermore, although no studies are currently available, it is likely that the convenience that PDAs offer would make it more likely that nurses would research more of the medications they administer rather than relying on memory alone, which could also potentially decrease medication errors.
Increasing Efficiency and Accuracy of Nursing Documentation

  Time saving measures, such as those offered by PDAs, have become very appealing to nurses in the modern hospital environment. In a pilot study of nurses, PDAs were found to be highly useful for collecting and documenting patient data (Doran & Mylopoulos, 2008). In the absence of PDAs many nurses are currently using personal “scrap” paper to record information at the point-of-care and later transcribing this into the patient record. This duplication of documentation could be eliminated with an interface that allows nurses to electronically send patients’ information from their PDAs directly to the organization’s electronic healthcare records (Di Pietro et al., 2008). It is also possible that such a system could eliminate transcription errors that may occur when nurses are manually transferring information from their personal papers into the health records.

  As well as making documentation faster, research has shown that PDAs have the potential to make documentation more accurate (Stengel, Bauwens, Walter, Kopfer, & Ekkernkamp, 2004) and also more likely to include nursing interventions such as non-pharmacologic pain management (Doran & Mylopoulos, 2008). Furthermore, PDAs used in acute care settings were found to significantly improve communication between nurses and between nurses and other members of the healthcare team. This latter finding was based on the promptness of information transfer as well as the level of general communication reported by the healthcare team. However, more research is necessary in this area to prove that the improved communication was not related to factors other than PDA use (Doran & Mylopoulos, 2008).

<< Previous    1  [2]  3  4    Next >>