Technological advances lead to nursing innovations. Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center (JHHCMC) Clinical Informatics Manager Kim Rost, R.N., recently served as a liaison between the hospital administration and the nursing department to develop and implement novel communications solutions. This new unifying communications technology improves teamwork and collaboration – and ultimately, patient safety. 

In 2022, JHHCMC planned an extensive update to their communications systems that would impact how nurses shared and received information about patient care.  “When you undertake a project of this magnitude, it was beyond nursing,” says Kim Rost. “We can support and align and explain technology as it relates to nursing workflows, but this was a robust hospital-wide initiative that we partnered on.” 

Kim and her clinical informatics team collaborated with the group, offering important perspectives to ensure the technology updates and new processes supported the nursing team in their unique roles. “It was vital the critical operational workflows happened and got the right message to the right person at the right time,” says Kim. 

When the new unified communications system was launched across the hospital, every nurse received a smartphone programmed with applications and software that improves key nursing processes.  

The new system simplifies many communications pathways across the medical center. Instead of finding a colleague’s phone number to contact them, nurses can now instantly connect by searching for their name or by their role in the Jabber app. Additionally, the smartphones are integrated with Epic, so nurses can identify members of a patient’s care team and send those providers secure messages on the go. The smartphones also come with a scanning feature, which allows nurses to read patient wristbands and medication barcodes without relying on in-room scanners. 

One of the most important functions is the alert system. When a patient presses the call button in their room, a notification is sent to their assigned nurse’s phone – and if it isn’t responded to in a timely manner, it is automatically escalated to another staff member. “It keeps going and going and going until that call is responded to,” says Kim. 

Better communication means better nursing. “It is critical to involve nursing in these initiatives, because it doesn’t make sense for an IT person to make decisions on behalf of the people who are doing the work,” says Kim. “The nurses are the subject matter experts.  We may have an understanding and a background, but they live this day to day. We bridge that communication gap to help convert what nursing needs into what technology can provide.”