How to Balance Technology With a Traditional Nurse

Traditionally, nurses have provided personal, compassionate care to patients at the bedside. Rather than isolating nurses from their patients, today's health information technology (HIT) actually enhances the nurse/patient relationship by helping to ensure patient safety with bedside procedures. Nurses can use HIT to perform all of their traditional duties --- from checking vital signs to giving medications, updating the patient's chart, and more. Using handheld barcode point-of-care systems, netbooks, electronic pads and other mobile devices, nurses can easily balance technology with traditional duties at the patient's bedside.

Things You'll Need

• Health information technology system
• Mobile, handheld electronic devices
• Barcode point-of-care devices

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Instructions

How to Balance Technology With a Traditional Nurse

• 1

  Administer medications with an automated barcode medication administration system. The nurse scans the barcode on the patient's wristband, then scans the barcode on the medication package, to confirm that she is giving the right medications and right dosages to the right patient. The nurse then gives the medications to the patient --- as pills, liquid, injection or in other forms --- in the traditional way.

• 2

  Record vital signs, using a handheld barcode point-of-care device, personal digital assistant, or electronic pad. The nurse checks the patient's pulse, blood pressure and other vital signs in the traditional manner. Instead of writing the information on a paper chart, the nurse calls up the vital signs program on the handheld device and enters the patient's vital signs data.

• 3

  Administer blood transfusions by using a transfusion safety management system to prevent errors. Before the nurse performs the traditional steps of blood transfusion, she uses a handheld barcode scanner to match the patient's wristband barcode to the barcode on the blood product tag. The nurse is assured that she is giving the right blood product to the right patient. The barcode scan also allows the nurse to automatically chart the blood transfusion and send it directly to the patient's electronic health record (EHR).

• 4

  Chart all interactions with the patient electronically and automatically, using a handheld point-of-care system linked to the patient's EHR. The nurse traditionally charts all medications given to the patient, vital signs and other events related to the patient's care. Instead of writing this information on paper charts, either at the bedside or at the end of her shift, she can automatically chart and populate the patient's EHR by using her mobile electronic device.