Tablets Enhance ICU Patient Experience

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Patients and family members who have received a tablet as a connection to their ICU staff and hospital report experiencing a better overall stay.

Having a family member in the ICU can be difficult, and the hospital stay can be even more so if you are the patient. In some hospitals, tablets are being used to help patients and their families navigate care in the ICU. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, patients who were provided tablets that gave them an input on their care reported overall better hospital stays.

One goal of the project was to involve patients’ families, since the involvement of loved ones has shown to improve safety and outcomes. Another goal is to consider respect and dignity of patients just as valuable as medical care. “We are broadening the definition of harm to include disrespectful care, which is every bit as important as an infection in the ICU,” says Peter Pronovost, a critical care physician and director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.

MobiHealth News reports that at Johns Hopkins, the first step was to include an electronic harms monitor, which tracks patient vital signs and alerts staff when a task needs to be completed. Alerts are color coded so that the most urgent ones are red while lower priority alerts may be yellow.

Next, a tablet is put in the hands of the ICU patient and their family. Family members can have a say in what happens during the hospital stay, for example, they can request help watching their loved one’s hair or helping them walk. The tablets can also be used to ask doctors questions or learn about the machines being used.

“While we assumed that beeping and noise from machines would be a big distraction, they talked more about being approached and touched without adequate explanation,” says Kenneth Sands, senior vice president of healthcare quality at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Some also cited a lack of respect for personal valuables. “If we lose your wedding ring while you are in the hospital, you would consider that a long-lasting harm.”

“There are so many patients on life support, and ventilators, and there are IVs and bags everywhere and you just don’t feel as if you have any control,” says Michelle Young, a UCSF advisory council member who provided feedback on the project. The WSJ explains that Young’s daughter, Amberle, spent many days in the ICU over several years struggling with a number of autoimmune disorders, before her death of complications from an infection in 2013 at age 23. “Patients need more transparency and access and education on how to navigate the ICU,” Young says.