davidppp

Hi, Crocuta, MLOS, Thank you very much for valuable input! I will need to rethink something. And job shadow a nurse is a great idea, I will try to get a permission on that. Does anyone has more comments that can share with me? Thanks in advance! David Jea NESL, UCLA EE

Hi all I will introduce myself first; I am a PhD student in UCLA Electrical Engineering department. This post is regarding some questions I have in order to justify my researches. Also, just so you know, I have zero-knowledge in the nursing field. Thus, I would like to have your feedbacks. Thanks in advance. In a general sense, the research I am doing is the binding between a medical device and a patient. I am looking at a healthcare environment where devices are miniaturized and wireless connected. Scenarios where you can continuously remote monitor the blood pressure, heartbeat rate, ECG signals, etc. with these type devices. We then divide the process into three steps: first, you associate a device with a patient; second, you can now receive the physiological data; third, you disconnect (disassociate) the device with the patient. The focal questions we aim are (1) the association/disassociation process mentioned above. (2) Which patient is physically using which device? To further motivate my researches, I would like to know your opinions and real-life experiences on how things can go wrong in the current setup of emergency care unit. Some questions I have are followings, and please feel free to answer any/all of them. Any other feedbacks/stories/suggestions are very welcome. (1) Is it common in a crowded emergency room that a madness of connecting different instruments to different patients? What are things that can go wrong? (2) During the process of disconnecting one device from a patient and putting it onto the other patient, have you ever encountered the problem that the device suddenly just doesn't work anymore? Are the protocols smooth and intuitive, or confusing? (3) Is it easy to tell that one device is physically using by which patient (especially when there are many patients)? Does it ever happen to you (or your colleague) that you thought device A is connected to patient A, but in fact it is connected to patient B? (4) What are the common human factor errors in emergency room? (5) Are you a US nurse who works in the emergency care unit? At last, it will also be very helpful if you could point me some references or articles regarding the issue. I appreciate your valuable time, David Jea NESL, UCLA EE Email: dcjea @ ee.ucla.edu (remove spaces)