Introduction
Bring Your Own Device is a recent approach adopted by various organizations. Despite being in the early stage of development, it offers several advantages that can be utilized in a nursing setting. The current paper provides a description of the approach as well as an overview of its viability for resolving the patient safety issue.
Identification of Technology
The issue of patient safety is among the most persistent and broad problems in the field of nursing. Throughout the development of nursing domain, numerous enhancements have been proposed, developed, and successfully introduced, partially alleviating the gravity of the issue, with surveillance systems and electronic health records being the most familiar examples. Nevertheless, the degree of patient safety remains below the desirable level and improves at a slower pace than required (Bernat, 2013). One of the reasons behind such insufficient improvement is the number of complications associated with innovative technologies. Thus, several adjustments can be suggested in order to mitigate the constraints.
One of the more viable approaches is the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy, an approach that allows employees to utilize their mobile devices, such as smartphones, laptops, and tablet PCs for work-related tasks. Such approach is becoming gradually more attractive for the healthcare providers since more employees own the personal devices more than capable of performing the majority of the required workplace tasks and usually find the idea acceptable due to a range of advantages associated with it. Admittedly, such policy has its shortcomings but offers enough benefits to consider it among the possible contributors to the resolution of the issue.
Assistance with the Problem
The most significant advantage of the BYOD approach is the increased user proficiency with the device. The introduction of the proprietary devices and software solutions designed specifically for improving patient safety revealed a major drawback in the form of the unexpectedly high training requirement. On some occasions, the devices were misused, resulting in a decrease of patient safety. In addition, on most occasions the usage requires more operational time than initially planned, leading to the schedule disruption (Bernat, 2013).
In BYOD setting, both issues would be dramatically decreased. Users will be highly familiar with their device and could navigate it much more effectively. Besides, the nurses could customize the software to adjust it to their individual needs, further improving their workplace efficiency. Finally, such principle ensures additional comfort resulting from the perceived improvement of work-life balance (Guyton, 2017). Naturally, in the case of technological solutions oriented towards patient safety, the improvement in performance would result in the improved patient outcomes.
The second advantage is the flexibility offered by the system. The possibility to carry the device across the medical departments provides more options for requesting and submitting different types of data (under the condition that the system is already oriented towards greater compatibility, which is accomplishable). While this improvement does not have a direct effect on patient safety, it provides indirect benefits by broadening the applications of the digital data in the clinical setting. Third, evidence suggests that the possibility of using personal devices in the workplace increases employee satisfaction rate, supposedly because of the familiarity, convenience, and the perceived sense of connection (French, Guo, & Shim, 2014). As in the previous instance, this outcome does not influence patient safety directly, it decreases stress and anxiety, which is a common cause of adverse patient outcomes.
Conclusion
The BYOD approach is currently in its early development phase, both in terms of policies and technological solutions. Nevertheless, the rapid pace of technological improvement allows us to expect its successful implementation in the nearest future. The current preliminary results of its use demonstrate both direct and indirect improvements in patient safety, which characterizes it as a viable potential solution to the problem of patient safety.
References
Bernat, J. L. (2013). Ethical and quality pitfalls in electronic health records. Neurology, 80(11), 1057-1061.
French, A. M., Guo, C., & Shim, J. P. (2014). Current status, issues, and future of bring your own device (BYOD). Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 35(10), 191-197.
Guyton, N. (2017). Is it time for BYOD for nurses? Web.