Survey: Nurses Want Device Interoperability

Nurses would like to see more medical device interoperability, a recent Harris Poll survey shows.

The survey, which was commissioned by WestHealth, found that 93 percent of nurses strongly agreed that medical devices should be able to seamlessly share medical data automatically. In addition, 74 percent agreed that coordinating data collected by devices was a burden, and 50 percent said they had seen a medical error caused by lack of device coordination.

The nurses also agreed that devices be designed to remove a common source of errors by eliminating the need for manual transcription of information, with 84 percent saying that would be extremely or very helpful.

Nearly all (99 percent) of the nurses said they used at least one device during a normal workday, with more than 40 percent of nurses saying they spend more than three hours per shift interacting with devices.

Interoperability is limited at most hospitals, according to WestHealth. Only about a third of hospitals integrate any devices with electronic health records, and those that do connect an average of fewer than three devices. Using six to 10 devices per patient is common in intensive care, the report notes.

View the survey and report at www.westhealth.org/sites/default/files/Nurses-Survey-Issue-Brief.pdf — Elizabeth Orr