Nursing I.T: Point of Care Computing Devices - An Overview

[rwingo]

Health Data Management has a good overview of the different point of care computing devices and a bit on the evolution of the electronic medical record's migration to the bedside.

Originally Posted by HealthDataManagement.com

It wasn't long ago that tasks such as recording fluid input and outflow were noted on a paper form and copied to another form at the nurse's station. The process was upgraded to documenting on paper forms and entering data into an electronic charting system at the nurse's station. A sign of progress, but there clearly was untapped potential.

Over the past decade, hospital computers started to migrate from nurse stations to patient rooms. But they entered the room gingerly, fearful of spooking patients with too much machinery and inattentive caregivers...

"The shift to the bedside is in gear," says Ruth MacCallum, R.N., senior consultant at Healthia Consulting, Minneapolis. "It's not in overdrive yet, but nursing as a profession is embracing the concept of having information available to them where they need it."...

Nurses face the biggest challenges in moving processes and data to the bedside, because they are asked to change care behavior. "Change is tough for anyone," says Cleary, with Hospital of Saint Raphael. "In health care we deal with change on a minute-to-minute basis."

• COWs (computers on wheels) were most popular for a variety of reasons (display size, ease of data entry, battery life, etc)
• PDAs are popular for scanning barcodes for drug administration and for simple data collection (vital signs, I/O, etc) and suffer from data input issues
• Tablet PCs seem to be the popular with some physicians, but suffer from input challenges and poor battery life

Read the full article