“Beam Me Up, Scotty!” - Star Trek Technology in Healthcare
Imagine being on the U.S.S. Starship Enterprise and a medical emergency occurs. How do you contact medical personnel in sick bay? Anyone who has watched the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” television series will tell you communication between crewmembers is a simple matter of using the communicator attached to your uniform. Forty years ago this technology was futuristic. In today’s hospitals, this technology is now a reality.
Communication between hospital personnel is a key component to providing quality care to patients. Throughout the course of a hospital shift, health care workers communicate with each other in order to meet patient needs and convey critical information. …show more content…
“Vocera badges are the size of a large USB drive, usually worn around the neck like a security tag which enable voice communication with other staff. They run on a wireless network, work with voice commands, and are often linked to telephone systems” (Forsyth). At the beginning of a shift, a Vocera badge is placed around the user’s neck or attached to their collar and the user is asked to say or spell his or her first and last name. Vocera then indicates it is logging in the user. A button on the front of the device is pressed to initiate a call to another person in the facility. This person can be reached simply by stating the person’s name or function in the system (Ernst, Weiss and …show more content…
A prominent finding showed nurses using Vocera in a number of ways besides communication for work-related issues. For example, nurses were observed organizing meetings and conducting conversations through the Vocera badges when face-to-face communications was not convenient. This confirms prior research related to the adoption of new information technologies that suggests users often think of new ways to use technologies, ways originally not intended or conceived by the designers (Orlikowski). The possibilities are endless now that hands-free communication devices have been shown to improve team communication, work efficiency, and the quality of patient care by enabling health care workers to communicate information in a more effective and prompt manner. In the words of Captain Kirk, Vocera is poised “to boldly go where no man has gone before”
Imagine being on the U.S.S. Starship Enterprise and a medical emergency occurs. How do you contact medical personnel in sick bay? Anyone who has watched the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” television series will tell you communication between crewmembers is a simple matter of using the communicator attached to your uniform. Forty years ago this technology was futuristic. In today’s hospitals, this technology is now a reality.
Communication between hospital personnel is a key component to providing quality care to patients. Throughout the course of a hospital shift, health care workers communicate with each other in order to meet patient needs and convey critical information. …show more content…
“Vocera badges are the size of a large USB drive, usually worn around the neck like a security tag which enable voice communication with other staff. They run on a wireless network, work with voice commands, and are often linked to telephone systems” (Forsyth). At the beginning of a shift, a Vocera badge is placed around the user’s neck or attached to their collar and the user is asked to say or spell his or her first and last name. Vocera then indicates it is logging in the user. A button on the front of the device is pressed to initiate a call to another person in the facility. This person can be reached simply by stating the person’s name or function in the system (Ernst, Weiss and …show more content…
A prominent finding showed nurses using Vocera in a number of ways besides communication for work-related issues. For example, nurses were observed organizing meetings and conducting conversations through the Vocera badges when face-to-face communications was not convenient. This confirms prior research related to the adoption of new information technologies that suggests users often think of new ways to use technologies, ways originally not intended or conceived by the designers (Orlikowski). The possibilities are endless now that hands-free communication devices have been shown to improve team communication, work efficiency, and the quality of patient care by enabling health care workers to communicate information in a more effective and prompt manner. In the words of Captain Kirk, Vocera is poised “to boldly go where no man has gone before”