Mobile Healthcare Apps Part 3: Nursing Education at Your Fingertips

As I wrap up this blog series on mobile health apps (apps) or mHealth apps, I wanted to the touch on the subject of apps designed specifically to supply educational tools and quick references for the nursing career. A survey by Wolters Kluwer Health found that 65 percent of nurses said they currently use a mobile device on the bedside for skilled purposes.¹ The study also found that 95 percent of healthcare organizations allow nurses to browse web sites and other online resources to acquire clinical information on the job.¹ The most important advantage of mobile apps is that they supply a wide range of references in a single central place that will be easily accessed from almost anywhere with a reliable web connection. Nurses working in any clinical setting can profit from resources available at their fingertips, especially at home and in public health settings where access to evidence-based information could also be limited.

As discussed in Part 1 of this blog series, physicians have access to 1000’s of mHealth applications. The hottest are drug manuals, tools to assist evaluate laboratory and diagnostic tests, and differential diagnosis guides². The use of mobile devices in skilled nursing practice can improve efficiency and help physicians:

• Full skilled development;
• Stay up so far with the most recent research and literature;
• Provide education to patients and peers;
• Translation of medical terms for patients and members of the family;
• Calculate drug doses;
• Calculate physiological assessments equivalent to body mass index (BMI), mean arterial pressure (MAP), Glascow Coma rating, Apgar rating, stroke scale and more;
• Organize shift work; AND
• Communicate with other healthcare professionals.

With an ever-increasing variety of mHealth apps in the marketplace, how can nurses decipher which apps are useful and contain probably the most relevant and accurate information? To use these resources effectively, nurses needs to be competent in several key areas, including basic computer literacy and use, information literacy (IL), and knowledge management.³. Information literacy (IL) is defined as the flexibility to acknowledge when information is required and to locate, evaluate, and use it effectively. Therefore, nurses must give you the chance to judge mHealth applications for accuracy, reliability, bias, timeliness, and coverage of knowledge.³ In a study conducted by Arith-Kindree and Vandenbark (2014), nursing students were asked to rate various mobile applications for usefulness. The study found that some apps, although coming from reputable sources, displayed recommendations that were incomplete.³ Based on the findings from this study, nurses should critically evaluate each application to be sure that:

• Credible – confirm creator credentials, publisher fame and review status;
• Relevant – assess the target market, purpose and date of publication;
• Up-to-date – check whether the content is consistent and always updated;
• Utilitarian – confirm that the appliance is beneficial and works as designed; AND
• Comprehensive – be certain the knowledge is complete and comes from a trusted source.

Healthcare apps can function useful tools for physicians on the bedside, but there are logistical and cultural barriers to their implementation and use. This opens up many opportunities for nurse informaticists to develop policies, organizational infrastructure, and competencies for integrating mHealth solutions into healthcare organizations and communities.⁴ However, there are several challenges to beat, including:

• Establishing hospital administrator support;
• Overcoming staff resistance to vary;
• Training for various learning styles and luxury levels through technology;
• Securing patient confidentiality;
• Cost of infrastructure and maintaining constant access to the Internet;
• Preventing significant breakdowns or breakdowns of machines brought on by interference from mobile devices; AND
• Ensuring that mobile devices will not be a distraction within the workplace.

Digital tools have the potential to make us more efficient, effective and informed practitioners. We are lucky to live in an age of innovation where tools can be found at our fingertips, anytime, anywhere. Unfortunately, not all mHealth apps are accurate and a few can’t be trusted. We, as health care providers, have to be critical in assessing the usage of recent technologies and verifying that they’re consistent with evidence-based practice before being fully integrated into the health care delivery system. Additionally, more research is required in the world of ​​mHealth to evaluate the true impact it could possibly have on workflow, quality and patient outcomes.

1. A Wolters Kluwer Health study found that nurses and healthcare institutions accept the skilled use of online support and mobile technologies. (2014). Retrieved July 11, 2016 from http://wolterskluwer.com/company/newsroom/news/health/2014/09/wolters-kluwer-health-survey-finds-nurses-and-healthcare-institutions-accepting-professional-use-of-online-reference- -mobile-technology.html

2. Baca K, Rico M and Stoner M. (2015) Using technology to boost care and improve interpersonal connections. 179-80.

3. Airth-Kindree N and Vandenbark T. (2014) Mobile applications in nursing education and practice. 166-169.

4. Austin, R. and Hull, S. (2014) The power of mobile health technologies and prescribing apps. 513-515.

Myrna B. Schnur, RN, MSN

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