Abstract
Efficient and effective communication between providers is critical to quality patient care within a hospital system. Hands free communication devices (HFCD) allow instantaneous, closed-loop communication between physicians and other members of a multidisciplinary team, providing a communication advantage over traditional pager systems. HFCD have been shown to decrease emergency room interruptions, improve nursing communication, improve speed of information flow, and eliminate health care waste. We evaluated the integration of an HFCD with an existing alphanumeric paging system on an acute inpatient medicine service. We conducted a prospective, observational, survey-based study over twenty-four weeks in an academic tertiary care center with attending physicians and residents. Our intervention involved the implementation of an HFCD alongside the existing paging system. Fifty-six pre and post surveys evaluated the perception of improvement in communication and the integration of the HFCD into existing workflow. We saw significant improvements in the ability of an HFCD to help physicians communicate thoughts clearly, communicate thoughts effectively, reach team members, reach ancillary staff, and stay informed about patients. Physicians also reported better workflow integration during admissions, rounds, discharge, and teaching sessions. Qualitative data from post surveys demonstrated that the greatest strengths of the HFCD included the ability to reach colleagues and staff quickly, provide instant access to individuals of the care team, and improve overall communication. Integration of an instantaneous, hands free, closed loop communication system alongside the existing pager system can provide improvements in the perceptions of communication and workflow integration in an academic medicine service. Future studies are needed to correlate these subjective findings with objective measures of quality and safety.
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Acknowledgements
Mary K. Goldstein, David Renfro, Emily Stallings, Jennifer S. Lee, Efner S. Reyes, Joy L. Abbey, Aileen Naungayan, Rachel N. Mack. Views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. No part of this study was funded by Vocera Communications, Inc.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This project was submitted to the IRB and determined to be exempt. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. All participation was voluntary.
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Fang, D.Z., Patil, T., Belitskaya-Levy, I. et al. Use of a Hands Free, Instantaneous, Closed-Loop Communication Device Improves Perception of Communication and Workflow Integration in an Academic Teaching Hospital: A Pilot Study. J Med Syst 42, 4 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-017-0864-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-017-0864-7