Respond to peers HC informatics w2

Peer Response Instructions

· After making your initial post, substantially respond to at least two other student posts that prompts further input or provides another viewpoint.  Describe a situation from your professional experience that backs up your viewpoint and discuss the social, moral, political and economic factors impacting your position.

Please be sure to provide appropriate APA-formatted in-text citations and references to support your response.

1st peer post:

Rylee Chapman

I know that I already spoke about this in a previous post but the technology that comes to mind is the pupillometer. We just had a representative come and show my unit how to use it and it blew my mind how far technology has come. The pupillometer is a hand-held instrument which provides quantitative pupillary measurements by taking 30 pictures per second of the pupil's response to light stimulus (St. Joseph Health, 2015, p. 1). This device measures pupil size and reaction to light and keeps track of results so the nurses can see a trend. This device helps alert medical professionals to increased ICP more accurately and quickly than before. You simply place the pupillometer in front of each eye and then click on it to take a picture. You hold very still for a few seconds and then retake the picture with the other eye. You can then look at trends and determine the patient's neurological status. 

I think that this device will definitely be helpful in finding these settle and crucial changes in patients. I haven't had it catch anything yet, but it makes me feel better knowing that a computer is measuring their pupils and it isn't based on my  observations alone. This device makes the observations objective rather than subjective. The man that taught us about this device showed us the trends of a patient who he took care of that ended up having a brain bleed. They were able to catch it two days faster than they would have without the device. We take care of stroke and head trauma patients on my floor so I think that this device will be great in taking better care of our patients and catching things early.

 

St. Joseph Health. (2015, June). Clinical guidlines: pupillometer in critical neuro patients, use of [PDF]. American association of neuroscience nurses. Retrieved July 17, 2023, from https://aann.org/uploads/Clinical_Guidelines_Pupillometer.pdf

2nd peer post:

Brittany Bacher

Some of the most common errors in blood specimen collection include “specimens labelled with the wrong patient name, missing draw times, illegible initials from whoever drew the specimen, among other pitfalls”, (Trask, 2014). In my two years nursing experience, I once witnessed an error involving a wrong patient label on a lab specimen of a patient in the ER. The nurse wrongfully labelled a new patient’s blood specimen with a label of a patient that had died in the same room prior to the new patient’s arrival. The lab technician caught the error and called the ER immediately to inform staff that we just sent a new blood specimen that was labeled with a deceased patient’s name. Upon investigation staff concluded that the deceased patient’s labels were left in the room after he was taken to the morgue, and once the new patient had arrived, the deceased patient labels that were left in the room were used to label the new patient’s blood draw.

Since then the hospital I work at recently implemented Mobilab to assist with blood draws. Mobilab is a small handheld printer and barcode scanner. I log in to my Mobilab device with my credentials, scan the patient’s wristband, and the collection labels for the patient print out immediately on the portable bedside printer. The printed labels have my initials, the time of collection, the patient’s full name, and the type of specimen that is being collected printed onto the label. “Using barcode scanning at the bedside dramatically impacts safety as users only have labels associated with the patient they're working on, ensuring the label matches the right patient”, (Trask, 2014).

Although I agree that barcode scanning for blood specimen collection such as Mobilab can decrease mislabeling errors by promoting bedside scanning, there are some drawbacks. Many of the nurses agree that it is time consuming and tedious to constantly scan the patient’s barcode for each blood specimen. This makes many of the nurses reluctant to use the product. However, now our lab technicians will not accept a blood specimen that is labeled with handwritten initials, as it must be typed and printed by the Mobilab printers. I understand that this can also prevent misreading a label by illegible handwriting by the blood collector.

“Implementing new technology always comes with uncertainty, and barcode specimen collection is no exception,” (Trask 2014).  Although there are some drawbacks to using Mobilab, it is important to understand how valuable this tool is in preventing mislabeling errors and promoting efficient care. Understandably nurses, who in some cases have spent decades collecting specimens using preprinted labels, will need time to adjust.

 

References

Trask, L. (2014). Barcode specimen collection. MLO: Medical Laboratory Observer, 46(12), 20–21.