iPod
Drexel University moves nurses from textbooks to the iPod touch
By Jim DalrympleSeptember 22, 2009, 2:37 pm PT
Out with the old, in with the new.
That was the theme for Drexel’s College of Nursing and Health Professions on Monday as more than 300 nursing students received an iPod touch instead of traditional textbooks.
“Our students are thrilled,” Dr. Gloria Donnelly, the Dean and Professor at the College of Nursing and Health Professions, told The Loop.
Donnelly said the school felt it was time to move on to newer technology. Drexel has been using PDAs for seven years, but an alumni study showed that only 25-30 percent of students were still using the devices.
The solution: the iPod touch.
Donnelly said the only major concern the faculty has was getting the textbooks the school used onto the iPod touch. As it turns out, the provider of the text books, Skyscape.com was already working with Apple to get its iPod touch app into the App Store.
What’s more students can connect to Skyscape.com four times a year and have their books automatically updated to the newest version.
While many in the technology sector may view this as a step forward because of the device being used, Donnelly sees it as a step forward in patient care.
“That’s the major goal — patient care,” said Donnelly. “Depending on what study you read, the seventh or eighth leading cause of death is error. We are heavily focusing on patient safety. What better way to school the students than to look things up, to check something at the bedside.”
Drexel isn’t discounting the use of traditional methods of diagnosing problems, but the iPod touch can help if there are any questions.
“We want patients to understand what’s happening with them,” said Donnelly. “It’s really a win/win.”
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3 comments so far
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i have a friend that is a nurse and she that their textbooks were basically collections of formulas and procedures. she often said that a way to have a video showing how to do this or that, calculators for drug dosages, indexes of drug warnings, a way to access and update patient files, to have an alarm reminding you of tasks etc. would be a wonder. in particular not having to try to guess the scrawl a doctor left on a chart would, she said, cut accidents in half. She’s thrilled about this news and hopes that it will move into hospitals real soon, especially ERs and ICUs like she works in.
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@charli:
Tell your nurse friend that if she actually can’t read a doctor’s handwriting, and doesn’t call him, and then makes a mistake, she’s committed malpractice. Remember the case from about 10 years ago, where a doctor wrote an illegible rx; the pharmacist couldn’t read it, guessed, and filled the wrong drug; the patient died. Jury found against both the doctor and the pharmacist. The doctor shouldn’t have written so badly, and the pharmacist should have called. That latter applies to nurses. If you can’t read it, you have to call.
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she’s very well aware of those facts, thank you very much. Which is part of why she welcomes any system that eliminates the use of written instructions because some of the doctors write so horribly that you have to call them dozens of times an hour since you can’t read anything. Some of the doctors can be real jerks and treat the nurses like they are morons because they can’t read etc so yes some of my friends co-workers would rather try to guess than deal with ‘tude yet again. Often they know enough about the patient to guess correctly but she’d rather it not be an issue cause if you can’t read it, you just up the font size and there ya go.
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Drexel University moves nurses from textbooks to the iPod touch
By Jim DalrympleSeptember 22, 2009, 2:37 pm PT
Out with the old, in with the new.
That was the theme for Drexel’s College of Nursing and Health Professions on Monday as more than 300 nursing students received an iPod touch instead of traditional textbooks.
“Our students are thrilled,” Dr. Gloria Donnelly, the Dean and Professor at the College of Nursing and Health Professions, told The Loop.
Donnelly said the school felt it was time to move on to newer technology. Drexel has been using PDAs for seven years, but an alumni study showed that only 25-30 percent of students were still using the devices.
The solution: the iPod touch.
Donnelly said the only major concern the faculty has was getting the textbooks the school used onto the iPod touch. As it turns out, the provider of the text books, Skyscape.com was already working with Apple to get its iPod touch app into the App Store.
What’s more students can connect to Skyscape.com four times a year and have their books automatically updated to the newest version.
While many in the technology sector may view this as a step forward because of the device being used, Donnelly sees it as a step forward in patient care.
“That’s the major goal — patient care,” said Donnelly. “Depending on what study you read, the seventh or eighth leading cause of death is error. We are heavily focusing on patient safety. What better way to school the students than to look things up, to check something at the bedside.”
Drexel isn’t discounting the use of traditional methods of diagnosing problems, but the iPod touch can help if there are any questions.
“We want patients to understand what’s happening with them,” said Donnelly. “It’s really a win/win.”
Email This Post
⋅ Print This Post
⋅ Post a comment
Discussion 3 comments so far
-
i have a friend that is a nurse and she that their textbooks were basically collections of formulas and procedures. she often said that a way to have a video showing how to do this or that, calculators for drug dosages, indexes of drug warnings, a way to access and update patient files, to have an alarm reminding you of tasks etc. would be a wonder. in particular not having to try to guess the scrawl a doctor left on a chart would, she said, cut accidents in half. She’s thrilled about this news and hopes that it will move into hospitals real soon, especially ERs and ICUs like she works in.
-
@charli:
Tell your nurse friend that if she actually can’t read a doctor’s handwriting, and doesn’t call him, and then makes a mistake, she’s committed malpractice. Remember the case from about 10 years ago, where a doctor wrote an illegible rx; the pharmacist couldn’t read it, guessed, and filled the wrong drug; the patient died. Jury found against both the doctor and the pharmacist. The doctor shouldn’t have written so badly, and the pharmacist should have called. That latter applies to nurses. If you can’t read it, you have to call.-
she’s very well aware of those facts, thank you very much. Which is part of why she welcomes any system that eliminates the use of written instructions because some of the doctors write so horribly that you have to call them dozens of times an hour since you can’t read anything. Some of the doctors can be real jerks and treat the nurses like they are morons because they can’t read etc so yes some of my friends co-workers would rather try to guess than deal with ‘tude yet again. Often they know enough about the patient to guess correctly but she’d rather it not be an issue cause if you can’t read it, you just up the font size and there ya go.
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