Computer Equipment on Nursing Units

You might find this helpful, see below.

From Health Data Management:

In addition to technological complexity, basic logistics is another hurdle. Nurses are very mobile, and I.T. often has a problem keeping up with moving targets, says Angela Lewis, R.N., project manager for clinical information systems at LaRabida Children's Hospital, Chicago.

"Nurses often have to collect information from patients and monitoring devices at the bedside. If computers are not at the bedside, nurses find themselves still carrying around little pieces of paper with patient information on them to enter data into PCs at nursing stations or another room", Lewis says.............. For the full story see:

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/html/current/CurrentIssueStory.cfm?PostID=11369

Hello all!

I am a health informatics grad student working for a group of hospitals in Canada who are implementing a joint Electronic Patient Record. We're now looking at the types of computer hardware that we'd like to offer our nurses and I'd like to know your thoughts on a few things:

What are the advantages and disadvantages to having a computer terminal in the patient's room versus in a hallway versus using a computer on wheels?

What do you prefer and why? What choices/placement of hardware are best for different nursing units or clinic settings?

What are the problems and successes you've had when using any of the equipment I've mentioned above? (anything related to battery life, lack of storage space, ease of use, etc.) Any recommendations?

I'm eager to hear your responses- it is very much appreciated!

Let me also mention another variable related to hardware at the bedside or in the clinical practice setting.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/05/02/prl20502.htm

Many organizationd do not consider the clinicians workflow, infection control or the human factors related to hardware selection, placement and design.

Several solutions we looked at:

http://www.man-machine.com/coolone.htm

http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=118539

http://www.icintracom.com/merchant.ihtml?pid=4564&lastcatid=119&step=4

Hello all!

I am a health informatics grad student working for a group of hospitals in Canada who are implementing a joint Electronic Patient Record. We're now looking at the types of computer hardware that we'd like to offer our nurses and I'd like to know your thoughts on a few things:

What are the advantages and disadvantages to having a computer terminal in the patient's room versus in a hallway versus using a computer on wheels?

What do you prefer and why? What choices/placement of hardware are best for different nursing units or clinic settings?

What are the problems and successes you've had when using any of the equipment I've mentioned above? (anything related to battery life, lack of storage space, ease of use, etc.) Any recommendations?

I'm eager to hear your responses- it is very much appreciated!

Look at handheld devices particulary for isolation rooms or we are looking at them for the respiratory therapists that go from floor to floor

Are you just documenting or looking at scanning at the bedside ?

Look at handheld devices particulary for isolation rooms or we are looking at them for the respiratory therapists that go from floor to floor

Are you just documenting or looking at scanning at the bedside ?

For the moment we will only be doing documentation, however, we are planning to pilot barcode scanning in a couple of areas with the intention of expanding it to all the sites over time.

Thanks for help!

We purchased the COWs and the staff love them. We use Datalux, and they are sturdy and reliable. We have wireless through out the campus. We also have tablets, that are available for MDs and contract staff to use as they come into document.