There's an interesting
commentary over at
Future Health IT discussing the problems with finding the right mobile computing input device for clinicians.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Future Health IT - CoWS (computers on wheels) are too unwieldy;
- Tablet PCs are too heavy;
- PDAs are difficult to read, especially for the longsighted;
- Handwriting and speech recognition are not accurate enough.
PDAs seem the most popular, but even they can carry infection (an Alaskan doctor cultured Hepatitis B from a PDA) |
It's not just the PDA's or other mobile computing platforms that we have to worry about.
Past reports have indicated that the keyboards of desktop PC's are also havens for all sorts of microorganisms, including the superbugs such as
VRE and
MRSA. One Toronto area hospital
had to throw out their keyboards when it was battling an outbreak of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, or VRE.
MSN has
more detail on Dr. Gary Noskin's research on this issue:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by HealthCentral.com The researchers put each bacterium on keyboards and keyboard covers to see how long they survived. They also typed on the keyboards to see if the bacteria could be transferred to the fingertips.
Noskin's team found that VRE and MRSA could survive up to 24 hours after being placed on keyboards or keyboard covers. However, PSAE could survive only up to one hour on the keyboard and five minutes on the keyboard cover.
The study also found that the more contact with contaminated keyboards, the more likely the bacteria transmitted to the hands, from 42 percent to 92 percent of the time for MRSA, 22 percent to 50 percent for VRE, and 9 percent to 18 percent for PSAE. |
In addition to taking into consideration the technical issues of selecting and implementing mobile computing devices in a healthcare setting, informatics professionals need to be cognizant of the potential impact of these devices to the entire workflow of the clinician.
03-27-2006, 09:14 AM
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