April 23, 2007
Up to the Challenge
Advance for Health Information Executives
By: Jim Boyle
As CIOs, physicians, and congressmen debate, discuss and guide the future of health information technology, the nurses on the front line eagerly wait for any new advancements that will improve patient care.
They may not be directly involved in the major decision-making processes, but nurses happily support the direction that health IT is taking, according to a recently released survey.
“Nursing input is often overlooked,” said Michelle Snyder, vice president of marketing for Epocrates, Inc., which conducted the survey with the non-profit Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). “The focus is usually on the physicians and the CIOs, which makes sense because they make the spending decisions and decide which drugs and procedures to use. But the nurses spend the most time with the patients and would benefit significantly from greater use of information technology.”
Epocrates, based in San Mateo, Calif., sent the survey to nurses who subscribe to its web-based and mobile reference products. After receiving 507 responses in three days, data analysts from Epocrates and ISMP found that nurses are embracing the benefits of mobile technology and are excited about adoption of electronic medical records and other technologies.
“About 80 percent of the respondents expect their medical institution to adopt EMRs in three years,” said Snyder. “That’s probably a bit aggressive, but indicative of how optimistic they are about the technology. In addition to EMRs, nurses see the value of other information technologies such as bedside bar-code scanning and computerized prescription order entry in helping to reduce human error and improve patient safety.”
Patient care is the top priority for the responding nurses. More than half indicated that hand-held devices helped them avoid two or more medical errors a week. They also replied that two major challenges for health care are insufficient resources and staffing and lack of time with patients. Of the responding nurses, 65 percent stated that they spend more time on administrative duties compared with three years ago. However, many believe these challenges can be overcome through greater use of IT.
The enthusiasm is strong enough that many nurses go outside the hospital system and purchase their own mobile devices and clinical software, such as Epocrates Rx Pro.
“Today, our clinical software products are primarily stand-alone reference guides which are not often integrated with hospital systems,” said Snyder. “What we have seen is that nurses recognize the benefits of using mobile technology and rather than waiting for a corporate wide solution, they went out on their own and purchased mobile devices and downloaded clinical software themselves.”
According to the company, out of more than 500,000 health care professionals that use Epocrates software, more than 70,000 are nurses, a number that sparked the survey. The questioners wanted to know why nurses were adopting mobile technology and what were their issues/concerns regarding the use of information technology.
“The two biggest things we found in driving IT adoption among nurses was the amount of training needed to use the system/software and whether the solution fit into their workflow,” said Snyder. “They don’t want software and devices that interrupt their daily routine and make their jobs more complicated.”
The survey was not all good news, however. More than 50 percent of nurses see the health care system as a whole getting worse within the next five years. Despite the grim outlook, more than 85 percent felt few regrets about their chosen career. Their main frustrations included compensation, high stress and internal politics that distracted from the reason why they entered the field, to help people.
View "Up to the Challenge" article.
CONTACT: Erica Sniad Morgenstern Epocrates Public Relations PHONE: (650) 227-6907 E-MAIL: pr@epocrates.com WEB: www.epocrates.com