As a nursing shortage looms in the NHS, Trusts are seeking out new ways to help increase nursing productivity. One way to improve nursing productivity is to use technology to decrease the amount of time nurses spend on routine tasks. By eliminating the need for nurses to manually document data generated by healthcare solutions like blood pressure monitors and vital signs machines, the Cerner CareAware MDBus solution can help free up nurses’ time, allowing them to focus on patient care.
“Technology that allows Trusts to connect healthcare devices to the electronic health record like the Cerner CareAware MDBus solution could be very beneficial for nursing productivity and patient safety,” said Christine Eddy, Head of Patient Services at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. “Any technology that can help nurses manage their busy work load and help them provide better care to patients is worth investing in.”
The Cerner CareAware MDBus solution is a healthcare information technology (HIT) architecture that facilitates connections between medical devices and the EMR to create a Single Source of Truth for patient information, making healthcare safer and more efficient. The Cerner CareAware MDBus reduces the need for nurses to gather data and manually enter it into the EMR and reduces the likelihood of dangerous data-transcription errors, creating a safer environment for patients.
“As the NHS seeks out ways to cope with nursing shortages and funding shortfalls, technology like the Cerner CareAware MDBus solution has been proven to help lessen the impact of these problems through improvements in efficiency and productivity by reducing the amount of time nurses spend on manual data entry,” said Donald Trigg, Cerner Vice President and General Manager in the UK.
Healthcare organisations that have used the Cerner CareAware MDBus solution have realised numerous benefits related to nursing efficiency and patient safety including:
Improved nursing efficiency. Instead of taking minutes for clinicians to enter data gathered by medical equipment into the EMR, using the Cerner CareAware MDBus takes seconds for a nurse to verify that the data was sent from the equipment to the EMR. This has allowed nurses to reallocate as much as three hours per shift to care directly for patients.
Decreased time spent troubleshooting device connectivity. IT teams typically spend several hours each week troubleshooting problems with healthcare equipment. Since the Cerner CareAware MDBus solution also reports information about healthcare solution performance along with clinical data, IT teams can reduce the amount of time they spend troubleshooting equipment problems from hours to mere minutes each week.
Improved patient-to-device association. Typically, clinicians manually record in the EMR the different items of equipment connected to the patient. By automating that process with the Cerner CareAware MDBus solution, nurses are able to verify that the correct equipment is associated with the patient in seconds, instead of the several minutes manual equipment association takes.
Reduced chance of medical errors due to transcription errors. Clinicians often jot down information gathered by healthcare devices on a piece of paper to record into the EMR later. If the data is incorrectly transcribed – a decimal in the wrong place or a number left off – or if that slip of paper is lost, it can lead to a medical error and potentially patient harm. The Cerner CareAware MDBus solution helps reduce the chance of such transcription errors occurring.
Cerner works directly with healthcare device companies around the world to better facilitate the transfer of data from devices to integrate to the medical record via the CareAware™ solution connectivity architecture.
The Cerner CareAware MDBus solution is currently available for use by NHS Trusts. Those interested in learning more can see the solution in action at the Cerner Collaboration Centre. The Collaboration Centre is a simulated environment of defined care settings that showcase current and future state offerings, helping hospital trusts to think through strategic issues, explore Cerner solutions and services and refine key deliverables over the lifecycle of a project.
