The Connected Clinician: Revolutionizing Acute Care Nursing

More than any other hospital staff member, nurses have felt the greatest impact to their workflow in support of Meaningful Use requirements and modern healthcare best practices. Ever-increasing government regulations for improved clinical documentation, in combination with a constant flow of new medical devices, have nurses spending more than 30% of their time in non-patient-care activities. Compound this with hospitals being squeezed financially from new government reimbursement laws, and the new reality is that nursing staffs are being reduced while simultaneously being asked to deliver more effective care. This demand for greater nursing efficiency and effectiveness has led to the creation of today’s modern Connected Clinician.

So what exactly is the Connected Clinician and what is enabling him or her to be more effective and efficient than ever before? The answer rests in new clinical mobile applications running on true Clinical Smartphones. Every leading Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software provider and specialty clinical software company is racing to release new mobile versions of their proven workflow applications to support the growing demand for greater mobility within the hospital. Applications such as vitals collection, meds administration, specimen collection, alarm management, nurse call and most importantly, care team communication are in the greatest demand. Reference apps that provide nurses and other clinical staff easy access to electronic drug data and dose safety information, such as eBroselow SafeDose, or medical dictionaries and disease reference guides, are very common as well.