The American Organization for Nursing Leadership recently published a report that reinforces the troublesome trend in healthcare: Nearly one-fifth of nurses are projected to leave the healthcare workforce by 2027. Nurses are central to the success of patient outcomes, so how can technology empower and support this dedicated group of professionals within the patient care space to feel satisfied in their role?
Problem
Inadequate staff and increasing complexity of patient conditions combined with inappropriate resources create the perfect environment for burnout. The American Hospital Association indicated almost two-thirds of nurses experience burnout. Creating solutions that focus on getting ahead of the precursors to burnout is imperative to maintain our highly skilled nursing workforce.
Technology also has earned a bad reputation for contributing to burnout – siloed systems with multiple logins eat into shift changes and increase frustration in a high-stress environment. Nurses should be able to focus on patient care versus the status of the disparate systems intended to assist in communication and clinical workflows. Many systems are designed without clinical teams leading and driving the conversation. Within a hospital system, decisions around the solutions utilized at the bedside are also often absent of clinical considerations. Vendors should include nurses in the ideation and product design phase to ensure the resulting solution benefits care delivery and is not just the creation of another “cool” technology.
Impact
Currently, about 10-15 networked devices fill each patient room. When these devices are not integrated, even the best workflows become too complicated and a hindrance to patient care. With that many devices in the patient room, reports from Leapfrog Group’s hospital ratings show a concerning decline in nurse communication, doctor communication, and staff responsiveness in hospitals nationwide. These results accentuate the need for hospitals to leverage interoperable technologies and streamline workflows with a conscious focus on empowering nurses. The National Academy of Sciences includes literature outlining the importance of interoperability in healthcare, noting it’s “…estimated that functional interoperability leads to increased efficiency, lower costs, and better quality of care…” Through technology, solutions, and support to practice nursing, we will see a reduction in burnout and increase retention of nurses within healthcare.
Solution
Some of the common technologies and devices utilized by the clinical staff and patients are the nurse call system, mobile devices, real-time location system (RTLS), patient beds, electronic medical records (EMR), and increasingly, virtual nursing platforms. When the patient engages with the nurse call system, the nurse should seamlessly receive the call on their mobile device. As the nurse walks into the patient room, their RTLS badge can integrate into the nurse call system and cancel the active call. This allows the nurse to focus on the patient and not on the cancel button. The nurse can engage with a workflow terminal to set a rounding or pain reassessment reminder that will flow into the EMR which can decrease documentation burden. Imagine what is possible for clinical efficiency and staff satisfaction when we appropriately integrate the devices within the patient room.
The outcomes of the interoperable platforms will allow for focused communication across the clinical teams and patients, as well as generating meaningful data that can be utilized to inform clinical decisions at all levels of the organization. Including staff in the data review or displaying the data visualizations around patient care to celebrate the immense efforts the nurses take on every day can provide real-time feedback to enhance nurse satisfaction. By providing focused data from integrated systems to nurses, we are allowing for improved decision-making, effective care coordination, and enhanced patient safety by removing the unnecessary “systems care” that takes time away from nursing practice.
Interoperability: The Future of Nursing
Interoperability of medical devices is not only a technical upgrade, but an important aspect in modernizing the healthcare space and enabling optimal nursing practice. Technology supplementing the science of nursing is essential to advancing patient care and clinical outcomes. The current pace of introducing technology solutions to the patient care space has left nurses picking up the system management workload, leading to increased burden and burnout. Nurses should be able to focus on patient care activities. Interoperability of medical devices ensures nurses can deliver the highest quality of care in the most efficient manner possible. We need to promote the integration of the devices, streamlining of workflows, visualizations of data for accessibility, and allow nurses to feel the impact of their work daily. Embracing and investing in this technology is an investment in the future of nursing.
About Elizabeth Anderson MSN, RN
As a registered nurse with over 14 years of healthcare experience, Elizabeth Anderson MSN, RN, Director of Clinical Experience and Solutions at Rauland, has dedicated her career to improving patient outcomes through innovative, nurse-centric solutions. Elizabeth’s diverse background as a nurse, educator, and clinical solutions leader provides her with a unique perspective on leveraging technology to empower nurses, enhance care delivery, and elevate outcomes. Her unwavering dedication and visionary approach make her a respected advocate and thought leader in nurse-centric innovation, driving impactful change through smart, interconnected solutions.
