Armed with Skyscape medical references on their PDAs, nurses at St. David’s HealthCare Partnership in Texas, are delivering more efficient, effective and timely care to patients.
This is the belief of Austin Community college which is outfitting those on its nursing fellowship program with the devices. The institution received a $2 million US Department of Labor grant as part of the government’s High Growth Job Training Initiative and has invested the funds in the PDAs.
Let’s say someone is questioning a medication, or there is a change in a patient’s condition, or a laboratory result comes back that needs review, the nurse may need to do fast research before calling the physician to tell them what might be happening, said Dr Susan Smith, consultant to the program.
Our PDAs and their Skyscape medical references really facilitate a much quicker reaction time. Plus, it puts the information at the practitioner’s fingertips. The nurse can respond faster to the physician, or someone else, when using the PDA, instead of returning to the nursing station to reference a medical book.
