Biomeds have long known that medical devices that appear to be broken often malfunction due to user error. Now, the AAMI Foundation is spearheading efforts to provide nurses and other healthcare staff with device training to ensure proper use of healthcare technology.
The Foundation recently hosted an Industry Council meeting addressing the need for high-level support of staff who work with medical equipment and devices at various health organizations. The meeting attendees, including representatives from BD (formerly CareFusion), Connexall, Hospira, Masimo, and Medtronic, as well as patient safety advocates and healthcare professionals, discussed the current state of training, challenges, and future solutions.
According to the Council, nursing is a very “device-heavy” job, and in recent years devices have become more interconnected and complex, yet most nurse training programs and health organizations still use outdated training models. Some of the challenges discussed by the Council included factors such as time constraints on overloaded nurses who are often asked to spend more time with patients, and the feasibility of training them how to operate a wide range of ever-changing devices. Some of the solutions touched on included breaking information or training sessions into small chunks to help address the issues of learning new things in a limited time.The Council concluded it also is necessary for new devices to be more intuitive and easier to use, ensuring greater safety with less training.
The AAMI Foundation says it will continue to investigate training of staff in healthcare technologies and may establish a national coalition to address the issues raised during this first Industry Council meeting. For more information about the issues discussed, see the news announcement on the AAMI website.
It is interesting that the referenced report made no mention of actually reading the Instructions for Use. In a past mini-survey I was surprised to see the number of medical device users who said that they didn’t read the instructions, they never saw them, they don’t have time to read them and/or that the instructions were not meant for them. I have also seen these assertions during use error litigation. There is a gap between the provision of adequate instructions for use (in FDA terminology) and users reading those instructions. Perhaps closing this gap is good place to address part of the training issue.
I don’t believe anyone will ever read a IFU and we have to accept that. In fact I would go so far as to say they were never meant to be read , nor do I believe any biomeds read service manuals – we all use them as reference manuals and the sooner we accept this the better .
In order to get equipment users to use reference manuals you need to encourage them to scan or search the doc until the find what they need. Start with the troubleshooting guide , that’s the mostly likely time to engage with them .
If you get 10 % of the staff to do that you doing well , but they become the go to people in the department.
Medical staff has been using reference material for years – it’s nothing new and if not available on your intranet site, next to all the other reference docs they use,you wasting your time – here is an example
http://www.ciap.health.nsw.gov.au/
( Click the “Tools” TAB )
The objective of medical devices and equipment orientation, training and familiarization to medical staff, users, and operators will provide a significant impact not only for the proper use and operation but for safety to both patients and users.
Reading the service manuals would definitely help the medical staff but would also make confusion when technical terms used in the equipment are not familiar with them. Secondly, their time is focused on the patient care and orders from doctors like medication endorsement, monitoring vital signs and more. So what’s in it for them (medical staff) since manufacturers design their equipment and devices with different features. They, medical staff are being paid for their role and not as fault finder of equipment.
However, it would be more valuable to end-users if the medical equipment orientation will benefit them personally of their safety, risk and hazards free in the equipment intervention. Wherefore, this is what I really do whenever I conduct the users orientation of medical equipment to medical staff of which mostly appreciated.
Therefore, it is a matter of encouragement and motivation to get the interest of the users to participate on this endeavor.