Nurses Say Medical Errors Could Be Reduced If Devices Were Connected, West Health Institute Survey Shows

Each year, it is estimated that more than 400,000 Americans die from preventable medical errors. This not only takes an enormous emotional toll on families and friends, but also places a heavy economic burden on the nation — an estimated trillion dollars or higher. As hospitals wage a war on error, there is growing appreciation that medical devices, while individually safe and effective at improving care and saving lives, can create risks for patients and challenges for clinicians when not seamlessly connected.

According to the survey, half of these nurses said they witnessed a medical error resulting from a lack of coordination among medical devices in a hospital setting. Devices include everything from infusion pumps, ventilators, pulse oximeters, blood pressure cuffs to electronic health records. The weighted survey was conducted online by Harris Poll from January 7–16, 2015 and included 526 nurses (credentialed at RN or higher and with an education of BSN or higher) who work full–time in a non–school setting.

Among these nurses, three in five (60 percent) said medical errors could be significantly reduced if medical devices were connected and shared data with each other automatically. This problem could be addressed by the widespread adoption of open communications standards that allow for the safe and secure exchange of data.

“Nurses are the front line of patient care and have an unrivaled ability to identify and address problems at the intersection of patients and technology,” said Dr. Joseph Smith, West Health Institute’s chief medical and science officer. “The survey helps show how much of a nurse’s time could be better spent in direct care of patients and families, and how errors could be potentially avoided if medical devices, which have been so successful at improving patient care, were able to take the next step and seamlessly share critical information around the patient’s bedside.”

Medical device interoperability, the ability to safely share health information across various technologies and systems, could provide important benefits such as enhanced patient safety and better clinical outcomes at a lower cost. The West Health Institute has estimated that a system of connected devices could potentially save more than $30 billion each year by reducing redundant testing, manual data entry and transcription errors.

According to the survey, “Missed Connections: A Nurses Survey on Interoperability and Improved Patient Care,” nearly half of these nurses (46 percent) said an error is extremely or very likely to occur when information must be manually transcribed from one device to another.

“I have seen many instances where numbers were incorrectly transcribed or put in reverse or put in the wrong column when typed manually, which can cause errors,” said one nurse who participated in the anonymous poll.

But perhaps even more important, transcribing data “takes way too much time for the nurses to adequately care for the patient,” one nurse responded. Many of these nurses agreed, with more than two out of three (69 percent) saying manually transcribing data is very likely to take time away from patients who need attention.

“Nurses enter the profession because they want to care for patients, not because they are interested in programming machines,” said Patricia H. Folcarelli, RN, senior director of Patient Safety at the Silverman Institute for Health Care Quality and Safety at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “As many as 10 devices may monitor or treat a single patient in an intensive care unit. The nurse not only has to program and monitor the machines, he or she often spends a significant amount of time transcribing data by hand because the devices are not designed to share information.”

Other key survey findings:

• 74 percent of these nurses (strongly/somewhat) agreed that it is burdensome to coordinate the data collected by medical devices
• 93 percent (strongly/somewhat) agreed that medical devices (e.g., monitors, diagnostic devices) should be able to seamlessly share data with one another automatically
• Half (50 percent) said they have witnessed a medical error because of lack of device coordination

About the Survey

The survey, funded by the nonprofit, non–partisan Gary and Mary West Health Institute, was conducted online by Harris Poll from January 7–16, 2015 on the Institute’s behalf. It included 526 nurses (credentialed at RN or higher and with an education of BSN or higher) who work full–time in a non–school setting. Participants were queried about the positive and negative aspects of working with medical technology. Respondents, whose identities are confidential, were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Poll Surveys. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Tim Ingersoll at [email protected].

Please visit https://www.westhealth.org/igniteinterop to read an issue brief of the survey’s findings.

ABOUT THE WEST HEALTH INSTITUTE
The Gary and Mary West Health Institute is an independent, nonprofit medical research organization that works with healthcare providers and research institutions to create new, more cost–effective ways of delivering high–quality care. We’re wholly funded by philanthropists Gary and Mary West as part of West Health, which includes the Gary and Mary West Health Policy Center, a nonprofit, non–partisan resource in Washington, D.C. that provides education, expertise and policy proposals to transform the American healthcare experience. Together we are pioneering new and smarter technologies, policies and practices to make high–quality healthcare more accessible at a lower cost to all Americans.

For more information, find us at www.westhealth.org and follow us @westhealth.

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Media Contact:
West Health
Tim Ingersoll
Office: 858-412-8727
Cell: 619-871-3769
Email: [email protected]