Technology & Innovation

Going mobile at Methodist

October 18, 2010

Global

October 18, 2010

Global
Our Editors

The Economist Intelligence Unit

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When Methodist Hospital, a 460-bed facility serving the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles, wanted to create a computerised provider order entry system and digitise patient records, the IT department faced a number of challenges in coming up with a solution that would appeal to the doctors and nurses that had to use the new technology.

Methodist’s CIO, Kara Marx, explains that one key lesson came from pilot projects to see how various users would respond to the approaches they were considering. “We looked at handheld devices, but found that a lot of people did not like them,” Ms Marx says.“Nurses, for example, always have something else in their hands, sowe didn’t want to give them something else they have to carry and which may require using both hands."

Methodist also tried placing PCs in patients’ rooms, but that proved too distracting for nurses who had to interact simultaneously with patients and family members while inputting data. “It made it difficult to focus on correctly entering the information into the system,” Ms Marx says.

The solution was to place small laptops, connected wirelessly to the hospital’s information network, onto moveable carts, so physicians and nursing staff could use them wherever they liked but would also have somewhere to put down whatever they might be carrying. Without the pilot projects to find out what clinical teams preferred, it is unlikely the new technology and new methods of working would have been enthusiastically adopted.

“Users preferred the carts,” Ms Marx says: “They liked the flat surface because it gives them a place to put down whatever they’re carrying while they enter information, but is also mobile enough that they can push it around as they make their rounds.”

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