CME Insider's Blog Posts

It's the Little Things: Medical Equipment’s Big Impact on Patient Experience

These days understanding why a patient is satisfied (or dissatisfied) is key to creating positive future experiences.

Experience encompasses more than the overall perception of care that is often based on preconceived ideas. The ease of making an appointment and interacting with medical personnel, the environment of the medical facility, understanding of treatment plans, post visit or procedure instructions, and financial arrangements all contribute to a patient’s experience.

And let’s not underestimate the impact the little things like the comfort of medical devices and equipment can have on a patient’s experience.

Medical Equipment with a Big Impact

TakeBlood Pressure Cuffsfor example. The simple change of taking a measurement on the inflate cycle versus the deflate cycle makes blood pressure readings more comfortable for the patient while maintaining the accuracy of the data.

Each year in the United States alone, 7,000 to 9,000 people die because of medication errors. Some of these tragic incidents are associated with calculation of medication dosages based on incorrect weights. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of other patients experience, but often don’t report, an adverse drug event or other complications due to medication errors in general. The total cost of looking after patients with medication-associated errors is estimated to exceed $40 billion each year.¹

While preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) has always been a top priority for healthcare providers, the COVID-19 pandemic fueled a large jump in HAIs by fourth quarter of 2020.  While equipment such as ventilators and catheters are top of mind during infection prevention discussions, there are other product solutions that you may not have thought of.

Here are six unique product solutions that will help control environmental risk factors for HAI.

Acquiring a critical or immobile patient’s weight is not easy. It takes time and disrupts clinical workflow. Despite the difficulties in obtaining weight measurements, a patient’s body weight is a critical measurement in calculating the appropriate dosage of life-saving drugs.

Social distancing protocols have been enforced to control and limit the spread of COVID-19. For frontline healthcare workers, social distancing isn't an option. Providing direct, immediate care to their patients cannot be avoided, and as the need for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and ventilators continue to grow, so do the concerns for healthcare providers' safety. The safer caregivers can interact with patients, the more quality care they are able to provide. As supply chain distributors look to meet equipment shortages across the nation, seca joins them in implementing viable solutions.

We can all relate to having our weight taken during each medical visit.  Our first encounter with a scale just after our birth is a kind of harbinger to what will be the most consistent measure of our health status done by clinicians.

Obtaining patient weight is fundamental, found across an array of hospital departments and specialties including:

A new line of scales has hit the market and are ideal for facilities standardizing on metric only measurements. Health o Meter Professional Scales recently launched an additional series of new models to its extensive line of kilogram only scales. Always striving to make things “weigh easier” for healthcare providers, Health o meter Professional Scales developed these KG only products with high-contrast color screens and interactive interfaces. While the scales are new, users will be glad to hear the extensive operating functions found on the manufacturers top selling scales remain standard; including Tare, Recall, Time/Date and more.

Electronic waste or ‘e-waste” has become a growing problem for landfills and recycling centers. As electronics age, fail or become obsolete they need disposal. If not adequately handled, e-waste has the potential to leak toxic metal alloys and other components into groundwater sources.

While this sounds entirely avoidable, more than 20 million tons of e-waste are produced annually. This includes waste from such sources as hospitals, medical practices, and nursing homes. How can you minimize the potential pitfalls in disposing of outdated and broken electronics? Follow recycling mandates and guidelines while outfitting your facility with compliant and greener solutions to electronic necessities. 

Detecto’s SONARIS stadiometer can measure virtually anyone’s height without any restrictions that normal stadiometers are bound by. SONARIS provides touchless height measurement via its state-of-the-art sonar technology that triangulates the top of the patients head instantly. Whether the patient is a tiny child or a giant adult, SONARIS will measure their height, regardless of size, covering a greater height range than any conventional height measuring instruments. Because sonar waves are being used, the person being measured doesn’t have to fit within any height minimums that normal digital or mechanical height rods use.