Evaluation of a Hands-Free Communication Device in an Acute Care Setting: A Study of Healthcare Providers’ Perceptions of Its Performance

Evaluation of a Novel Communication Application From Nurses' Perspectives

The purpose of this article is to report usability of a computer application, Speak for Myself, from nurses' perspectives. This was a one-group exploratory survey. Nurses included patients in the study who were older than 18 years, could write and speak English, were unable to verbalize needs for any reason, and had a specified sedation-agitation scale (-1 to +1). Patients were excluded if they were younger than 18, could not write and/or speak English, or had a Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale score exceeding -1 to +1. Twelve RNs from various ICUs in two hospitals in South Florida participated in the study. A person who was a supervisor or clinical specialist was chosen in each participating unit and at each hospital for recruitment of patient participants. Five nurses (41.6%) stated their patients were able to communicate better with the use of Speak for Myself, and all 12 nurses (100%) indicated they would use Speak for Myself again. Suggestions for further development of Speak for Myself were offered from the nurses. Limitations include a small sample in South Florida. The results of this and previous studies about Speak for Myself will be used in further development and testing of the computer application.

Does the addition of Vocera hands-free communication device improve interruptions in an academic emergency department?

OBJECTIVE

Emergency department (ED) interruptions occur frequently. Recently, a hands-free communication device (HCD; Vocera) was added to the population of communications devices (a cellular telephone and a pager) in our ED. The research purpose was to determine whether this addition improved interruption times and our hypothesis was the device would decrease length of interruptions.

METHODS

This was a prospective cohort study of interruptions in an academic ED level 1 trauma center before and after introduction of an HCD. Interruptions were defined a priori and based on previous literature. We studied a convenience sampling of shifts. Length of interruption time was recorded. Three investigators collected interruption data, including nine different ED attendings.

RESULTS

Of 511 interruptions, there were no significant differences in types of interruptions pre- versus post-HCD. Before HCD use, we collected 40 hours of data with 65 interruptions (mean 1.6/hour). Post-HCD, 180 hours of data were collected with 446 interruptions (mean 2.5/hour). There was a significant difference in length of time of interruptions, with an average of 9 minutes pre-HCD versus 4 minutes post-HCD (P = 0.012 diff 4.9; 95% confidence interval 1.8-8.1). HCD calls were significantly shorter than non-HCD calls (1 vs 5 minutes; P < 0.001). Comparing data collectors for type of interruption during the same 4-hour shift resulted in κ = 0.73.

CONCLUSIONS

The addition of Vocera HCD may improve interruptions by shortening call length.