Epocrates, Inc., a provider of clinical information and decision support tools with more than 800,000 active professionals in its network, announced survey results indicating that nurses are responding to the nursing shortage by relying increasingly on mobile technology.

The nursing community surveyed included 49 percent urban, 33 percent suburban and 18 percent rural areas. Most nurses surveyed were in a hospital, outpatient or physician practice. The survey expressed that nearly half of the respondents have been practicing nursing for more than two decades and almost all replied that despite the shortage they would still have chosen a career in nursing.

As expected, participants reported their concern about the nursing shortage impacting patient safety and care. However, as a solution to day-to-day tasks, the respondents who favored personal digital assistants and smartphones estimated that the use of mobile technology which provides access to drug information, pictures of medication, and medical calculators, for example, saved them more than half an hour per day.
Additionally, more than 50 percent estimate that use of mobile technology has prevented two or more medical errors per week being made. Illegible handwriting comprises 60 percent of nursing medical errors, while the expense of the technology remains the largest hurdle to adoption, according to the survey.

Source: www.epocrates.com

Read a report on health care staffing in the September 2009 issue of DOTmed Business News, now online.

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