As Doctors Use More Devices, Potential for Distraction Grows
// Great read about the negative impacts of personal technology in the medical setting at the point of care!
// Just like texting while driving, the same thing is happening in hospitals. We need better monitoring and accountability when individuals break the rules.
// We can borrow a lot of the methods employed in other industries to tackle the issues of employee Internet abuse… for starters, define the rules and consequences of non-compliance. Apply it to CEO, MD, RN, Technician etc.
Research on the subject is beginning to emerge. A peer-reviewed survey of 439 medical technicians published this year in Perfusion, a journal about cardio-pulmonary bypass surgery, found that 55 percent of technicians who monitor bypass machines acknowledged to researchers that they had talked on cellphones during heart surgery. Half said they had texted while in surgery.
(via New York Times)
