Digital Nation on PBS FrontLine –> Digital Pharmacy
04/01/2010
I happen to catch this amazing program from PBS FrontLine. Highly, highly recommended on many levels. It even freaked me out a bit and I spend way too much time on line.
From a pharmacy perspective the following occurred to me. There was a fair amount of discussion in the program about multi-tasking. So how much multi-tasking is occurring during order perfection/verification? What are policies in hospital pharmacies on open internet use? Is there an association between open internet access in the pharmacy and productivity or errors?
Recently I commented that restricting social networking sites in hospitals was a dumb idea. Here is a post from the CEO of a large Boston Hospital making this point, criticizing Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. In an Anonymous comment this point is made:
"I work at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, and can share that a critical detail is missing from your posting. UIHC is blocking social networking only on workstations that are considered 'clinical workstations' – these are specific workstations throughout the organization in inpatient, outpatient, and operating rooms, intended for clinical documentation, order entry, and results reporting. This comes after several patient safety incidents where personal use of a clinical workstation may have been a factor. Social networking sites are still available to computers in offices, classrooms, cafeterias and other spaces."
What about pharmacists workstations? Is there any evidence for or against locking these systems down? What are your thoughts?
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