According to Jennifer Lyons’ chart, she’s just a bad slip and fall who’s lucky enough to be on her way to a full recovery.

But to Jennifer, who is lying in bed with a broken mandible and broken limbs, nothing could be further from the truth.  Jen was visiting the city on a business trip when her accident happened, and now she’s lying in a bed 2,000 miles away from her family.  Although her husband is flying in later tonight, never in her life has Jennifer felt more disconnected.  That is, until her nurse points out the revolutionary screen standing next to her bed.  Even though she can’t move her mouth, two minutes later, Jennifer is catching up with her children.

Two floors down, Rebecca Forrester is also lying in bed with no family members around her.  She’s in her eighties and the fall she took is already developing a complication – pneumonia.  Her daughter is working in Tokyo and will take a day to get to her side – a day Rebecca may not have.  With no telephones in this ICU, Rebecca knows if her daughter doesn’t make it to her in time, she may never be able to speak to her again.  Until a nurses’ aide enters with a wireless web pad.  A minute later, Rebecca and her daughter are talking.

In a growing number of hospitals nationwide, hooking up your patients has just taken on a whole new meaning.  Whether via wireless web pads, or bedside units, patient Internet access is revolutionizing patient care and patient communication. 

Originally conceived as a way to reduce boredom and facilitate patient education, the units quickly began to add other features including relaxation videos, local TV channels, video games and telephones, besides videos and information patients can access on specific healthcare issues. Feedback is already showing what medical professionals have suspected for years -- people simply feel better when they’re active and connected with the world around them.  But patient Internet manufacturers didn’t stop there. They also found a way to add a host of applications that increase bedside patient care in ways never before possible, by bringing the information age right to the bedside.

Many systems now integrate electronic medical record systems, bar code medication systems and even digital imaging directly into the web screen units.   This means that doctors and nurses can do chart notes, look up lab results and in some cases order or dispense medications without leaving the patient’s bedside. 

But for the patients, it’s all about facilitating communication whenever they need it – with loved ones, with friends or even with work.  Just because someone is hospitalized doesn’t mean they have to be isolated.  For Jennifer Lyons, being able to communicate with her children means everything.  Not only does she feel connected, because she can check in with them a few times a day, she feels more able to relax knowing that everything is fine at home. 

And technology doesn’t stop there.  Doctors are now using Twitter to keep families apprised of the patient’s progress during surgery.  Smart phones with email and video capability are also creating ways for nurses to immediately send families images or messages to loved ones who might not make it quickly enough to the bedside of dying patients.  Smart phone video also provides a quick way for a dying patient to leave a last message for the people they love.  

As for Rebecca, she didn’t fare as well.  The pneumonia took hold and her daughter was unable to get to the hospital quickly enough to be with her before she passed away.  But with the wireless web pad and a little help from her nurses’ aide, Rebecca and her daughter spent the rest of the day writing back and forth, telling stories, sharing memories and making sure they said everything to each other, that they wanted to say. 

And to them, that made all the difference.  Priceless.  

Using the internet to help your patients communicate is just ONE way to increase patient safety, health and satisfaction while reducing liability.  We have many more...

The Seven Steps to Successful Notification System is filled with tools you and your ED/Trauma Staff can use to facilitate NOK notification, patient identification and communication. 

Or if you want to create change throughout your entire facility, our new Six Sigma based, HIPAA-friendly, “Creating A Next of Kin Notification Program” has everything you need to roll out the Seven Steps System facility-wide.  The Program includes patient tracking workflows, tools and training materials, based on the Seven Steps System.  It  provides your Emergency Department staff, managers and Risk Management professionals with comprehensive training, while giving you and your hospital a fully operational Next of Kin Notification System in just 90 days. 

Check out Creating A Next of Kin Notification Program today.     

Laura and Janet Greenwald, are the founders of The Next of Kin Education Project and Stuf Productions.  The mother & daughter team were not only instrumental in enacting three Next of Kin Laws in California and Illinois, but created the Seven Steps to Successful Notification System, which teaches quick, easy, next of kin notification skills for trauma patients to hospitals like Dallas’ Methodist Medical Center.