You have touched on many of the key issues here. Clearly, cell phones in the clinical area can help or hurt patient care.
But can you think of one place where you would expect staff to be completely “on task” and vigilant, without the distraction of a cell phone? Would that place be the Operating Room? Nurse anesthetists share the view that the OR is a time and place for full attention, and yet it too has its distractions from noise, alarms and personal devices. The article below is a very nice condensed history of the research into the impact of personal electronic devices on patient safety and a review of the current literature on the subject.
A couple of highlights:
A 2012 Pew Research Study found:
50 % of the respondents to their study had bumped someone due to distraction with cell phones
84% did not go one day without their cell phones
20% checked their phones every 10 minutes!
Another study done in 2011 of perfusionists found that 56% of the respondents used their cell phones while running cardiopulmonary bypass!!!
The article also mentioned an interesting caution that, in the event of an accusation about the quality of care, the personal electronic device serves as a “incriminating evidentiary support to the accusation by retrieving activity that is dated and time stamped”.
What are some of the implications of this?
Loretta
Snoots, L. (2016). Use of personal electronic devices by nurse anesthetists and the effects on patient safety. AANA Journal, 84(2). 114-119.