Nurses Want Better Mobile Tech. Here's What 100s of Them Told Us

In this episode of the BlueFletch Frontline Mobility Edge, Brett Cooper and Lee DeHihns break down the results of a new survey of hundreds of frontline nurses across U.S. hospitals, clinics, and home healthcare settings.

They cover the top 5 mobile device frustrations nurses face, from login headaches and battery life to software crashes and lack of IT support, and explore what nurses actually want from their technology, including better system integration, advanced AI diagnostic tools, and improved mobile apps.

Key topics discussed:
- Why 27% of nurses say login and security make devices hard to use
- The surprising stat that 52% still rely on username and password
- How 98%+ of nurses say mobile devices improve quality of care
- Which EHR systems nurses are using (Epic, Meditech, athenahealth, Oracle Cerner)
- Why 95% of nurses are positive about AI adoption
- The #1 technology improvement nurses want (it's not AI)

The full white paper will be available soon on our website and social media.

BlueFletch provides enterprise mobility solutions, including SSO, device security, and mobile device management for healthcare, retail, and more. 

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#healthcareit #Nursing #MobileDevices #HealthIT #AI #FrontlineWorkers #HospitalTechnology #HIMSS #ViVE #nursetok

Transcript

Welcome And Survey Scope

Speaker 0:03

I'm Brett Cooper and this is the Frontline Mobility Edge, where we discuss the latest in mobile device technologies and how they're shaping the frontline landscape business. Thank you for joining us. Let's get started. Hello, welcome to this episode of the Blue Fletch Frontline Mobility Edge. I'm joined by Lee DeHihns, and today we're going to talk about a report that BlueFletch recently commissioned for frontline nurses and hospitals in North America or USCB specific. So we did a survey specifically to learn more about the experiences and feedback on mobile technology for nurses that work in these frontline roles. So it's hospitals, uh clinics, some home health care. It's a pretty diverse group of nurses, several hundred nurses, so it's a decent sample size. Wanted to talk through this. And Lee and I called out a couple topics that we thought were interesting. So we'll cover those and dive into a couple of those here in a second. So Lee, thank you for joining me. To get us started, I'll just do a quick framing. The survey was, I think we had about 30 questions focused on a lot of the the, you know, what systems do you use? What's your experience? What's your feelings? What's your feedback on the on the uh good, the bad, the ugly, um, what would you like to see more of? So um a couple of these we called out. I guess Lee, the first one that you you called out, which I I didn't even see until you said it was the number of years of experience. I think this was uh over 60% had more than six years of experience. And as I thought about it compared to like other fields we work in, it definitely was a pretty high number.

Speaker 1 1:39

Yeah, I think so. So I to me, what that shows is the people in nursing are in this as a career and they're invested in it not only from just a livelihood perspective, but caring about what they're doing and making sure that they're increasing better outcomes for patients, for the people they're taking care of. So if they're spending, you know, in many cases, the balance of their lives in these careers, then it's important to them that the tools that they're using are going to make their job easier.

Speaker 2:12

Yeah, I think the other piece of this was just with that tools. I think one of the questions was the um experience, how people felt their experience was with technology itself. And I think over 90% of the respondents were ranked themselves as intermediate or better or intermediate experts in in regards to um technology and using technology in their job, which to me it's uh I know uh everybody ranks themselves above average, but 90% is definitely um, you know, a lot of people have spent a lot of time learning these systems and investing a lot of their career into them.

Speaker 1 2:46

Yeah, I don't know if people think of nurses as technicians or technologists, but they definitely are. Next time you go to a doctor's office or if you happen to be in a hospital for one reason or another, look around at the tools and they require an incredible amount of training just to be proficient at them, much less, you know, be good at them and use them to improve what you're doing.

Tech Skill On The Floor

Speaker 3:09

Yeah, I was uh one of my kids had a uh broken arm recently, and I was incredibly impressed with how fast the nurse typed with gloves on. Um I he probably typed about four times faster than me and was wearing gloves. I was like, man, this is awesome. So definitely uh not not an exact indicator of technical proficiency, but definitely somebody who knows the systems and is able to navigate it quickly. Yeah. Um the the next topic we had it was that that you and I called out was just issues with mobile devices. So a lot of the questions we had in the survey were around different mobile devices people used and the um the things that were frustrating to them with those devices or issues they had was was one of the questions. And I'll there were uh there were a number of issues that people listed. The top five, I'll I'll go through them one by one. I'd like your feedback as we go through this. But number number five was at coming in, 18% of nurses um are taking this as a a point of frustration was concerns with patient data security. Um what's your what's your read on this one?

Top Device Pain Points

Speaker 1 4:13

So I think it shows the the fact that this was prevalent, shows the degree to which patient privacy and security and HIPAA compliance is very important in healthcare. And the training with that and the practice that the nurses put into that is very important to them. And so the perception that if you have a device, particularly that's shared, um, may increase the exposure for a data breach, I think is where the thought process is going there. So if you're used to doing something on a dedicated device and then you have to share a device with other people, the the nurses want to make sure that they're not going to be exposing um important information where it shouldn't be.

Speaker 4:57

That's interesting. I actually read this the opposite direction. In the one of the earlier questions in the survey, we asked nurses about whether they use a shared device that's provided by the hospital or whether they're using their own personal device. And I think even though some hospitals did provide shared devices, it was over, I think 45% are using a personal device on the job at work. And I I actually, when I when I saw this response, it made me think of how many nursing conversations are happening on WhatsApp or some of these other applications may not be managed by the IT teams.

Speaker 1 5:30

Yeah, definitely. There's there is that shadow IT side of it. And I think it goes back to the the first point we talked about with the the people that are in nursing roles are in this for a career. And if the tools that are provided for them are not getting the job done, they'll use another tool, or they just won't use a tool at all because they need to care for the patient and the patient outcome, which is why you end up with WhatsApp groups for you know the OR or labor and delivery or something like that.

Speaker 6:00

Yeah. Yeah. Sh shadow shadow IT sounds a lot cooler than what it actually is, though. That's a uh that's a that's a good term for it, but it uh definitely it's it is a little sketchy at times. Um the next uh complaint or concern that nurses had with mobile devices was uh and this came in also 18%, was that mobile batteries do not last a full shift. What's your what's a readout on this one?

Speaker 1 6:26

Yeah, it's interesting. Um to me, and I'd be interested interested to hear your take. To me, this sounds like there's a fair amount of penetration still with um devices that don't have swappable batteries. So specifically thinking of like iOS devices, for example, or devices that are not meant for really heavy use. And if you think about particularly if you have an iOS device that is dedicated, um, either a personal device or one from the uh you know from the organization, those devices are being used constantly. And when the battery runs down, you're either A going to put that device down and not use it, or just try to use it as sparingly as possible throughout your shift to try to make it last. And neither one of those is ideal.

Speaker 7:13

Yeah, when I when I saw this, it made me think of there was one of the qualitative comments that one of the nurses had is that um it was I think of the freeform section, it's like message of leadership. It's like it's like we have iPhone 8s, we need to replace them. It's just made me think of like if you're using an iPhone that is nine years old, there's probably a good chance the battery is not going to last more than three hours.

Speaker 1 7:35

Yeah, that that was a surprising one to me. I remember when you and I looked at that yesterday, I was like, that's an old phone.

Speaker 7:43

Uh all right, so moving on to number three, so of the uh top five issues that nurses are articulated with mobile devices. The uh coming in at 24% of the nurses saying this is a problem, but software frequently malfunctions or crashes. What's your thoughts on this one?

Speaker 1 8:00

Yeah, I mean that's a tough one, right? Because the reasons that software may malfunction or crash can be myriad, right? And so I think it indicates that there's could be more done from an infrastructure perspective on um bandwidth within a hospital. You know, if you've got uh mobile devices deployed on every floor of a hospital um and hundreds of people working in there all using them constantly, but haven't accounted for that from a network perspective, that can cause issues on that device to hang up or you know, in the eyes of the end user, crash or not work or malfunction. Um the other side of it speaks to the point that perhaps the software that's being rolled out is not being tested thoroughly enough before it's deployed to the user groups to actually use to care for patients.

Speaker 8:51

Yeah, that's and there's a lot of software. I know we we got the list from nurses of the types of software they use, and it's it's pretty widespread. Um, you know, everybody uses an EHR, which we'll talk about there here in a second, but I think the um there are a lot of different pieces out there. There's also some um another just topic we'll get to in a second when we get to what what nurses actually want. Um, so uh next issue I had was the coming in number two at 26% of nurses are taking this as a concern was lack of technical support. Um to me, I read this and I'm like, uh, you know, it must be incredibly frustrating to be out on the floor, have a problem, and you know, need to see patients and you know, call the help desk and like, oh, you're called me, you know, we'll get to you in 10 minutes. Like you don't have 10 minutes. You have to be able to get get out there and do things. So, what is your uh your thoughts around this? Is there anything you've seen with the customers we're working with in regards to the technical support side?

Crashes, Networks, And Support Gaps

Speaker 1 9:47

Yeah, we talk about we've I feel like we've talked about this on other podcasts, is particularly in IG departments that are tasked with a number of practice areas that they need to be on top of uh simultaneously. There can be uh a tendency to deploy a technology, so shared devices with let's say six applications for nurses. Once that's deployed, they move on to the next project. Maybe it's you know adding more access points or um repairing workstations on wheels or helping, you know, a set of doctors come up with a software solution for a project they've decided on. So the IT department is pulled in all kinds of directions. And I think when you're rolling out software and putting devices in hands of people that are going to be using them on a daily basis throughout their shift, you really have to think about the support that needs to go into that so these devices can be utilized in the manner that they that they're intended.

Speaker 10:52

Sorry, yeah, day day two is definitely more expensive than the rollout day.

Speaker 1 10:56

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 10:56

Um, yeah, number one the issues of mobile devices, and this is this kind of hurt me a little bit when I saw it, but it also gave me some hope. So login and security make mobile technology hard to use. That came in at 27% nurses complaining about that. Yeah. Um, I I just feel like Lee is probably not doing a good good enough job spreading the word about Blue Fletch and our our login solution. But what was your uh what was your take on this one?

Speaker 1 11:22

Yeah, there's a few things in there. I mean, obviously no one likes to type the password that got assigned to them. Um that's 16 characters of numbers and letters and weird carrots and things like that. And that's just not fun to do over and over and over again. And um, you know, there's improvada in the marketplace with 95% market penetration. It makes me wonder how penetration is defined, because from a single sign-on perspective, that hurt my heart a little bit too, is people should be able to pick up this device very simply, um, you know, for example, tap a badge or internet password only once at the beginning of the day and have everything ready to go.

Speaker 12:07

Yeah. It's uh it's interesting. Uh so I'll move on to the next topic. Um this was really the the impact of mobile devices on the work. This is sort of the flip side of you know the the the positives of this. And the thing that stood out to me was um looking at the survey, and this is like, you know, how do you feel about software and mobile technology? And over 98% responded that mobile devices increase quality of care, increase their efficiency, and reduce patient errors. And so um, those were three separate questions, and they were all you know, over 98% responded. Some of those were 99%, but it's it's clear to me that that putting these devices in people's hands um gives them uh an advantage when they're out on the floor and they're helping serve patients and work with patients. Um what you know, what are your thoughts as you looked at those numbers and looked at some of the the positivity from the nurses around the advantages of mobile technology?

Logins As A Hidden Time Sink

Speaker 1 13:07

Yeah, I I found those numbers very encouraging. Um but it does point to the the importance on having technology at the point of care, right? So you're not um at a bedside, but then having to walk back to a shared workstation if there wasn't a workstation on wheels available for you, for example. Um it also, if you go back to the first topic we talked about, the concerns about battery life, software malfunctioning, lack of technical support, even with those hurdles, the nurses are still finding that these devices are 100% critical in terms of getting better quality of care and better outcomes for their patients. So to me, it makes the the hurdles that they have to overcome and that they're willing to overcome that much more critical to eliminate them if we can.

Speaker 13:59

Yeah, I think also on that note, like the preference of technology. I think it was 71% preferred mobile technology and 3% preferred workstations on wheels and fixed computers. So that was definitely uh, you know, it's clear that nurses would prefer to have mobile devices or tablets in their hands as opposed to having to roll around a workstation on wheels or uh or deal with uh Windows machines.

Speaker 1 14:25

Yeah, even with all those complaints, they're better than a workstation on wheels, which is just interesting. So if you could get rid of the security concerns, uh some of the battery life concerns, um not that you're necessarily looking at making our numbers better in our survey, but just think about how much better your outcomes could become if that device was always available and easier to use.

Speaker 14:44

Yeah. The next uh next topic, and this was you know, it's not it was interesting to meet you and I as we looked at it, just because we've you know talked to a lot of hospitals and healthcare systems, and this was this question was specifically around what EHR nurses are using on their mobile devices. And number one, no surprise, Epic came in at 40%. Um, number two and number three were surprised me. So MetaTech at 33%, and then Athena Health at 24, and then uh number four, Oracle Cerner was 14. I I feel like you know, if you did this 10 years ago, Cerner probably would be a much higher percentage. Um, what's your your thoughts on sort of the the shift? I the epic is no surprise me, but MetaTech and Athena Health, your your thoughts on those two?

Speaker 1 15:30

Yeah, that was surprising to me. I don't I'd love to you know sit down and talk to some of the people who answered this and have them explain to us a little bit more about you know why MetaTech seems to be as prevalent as it is in the survey, but not as prevalent when we're talking to hospitals from a customer perspective. So I'm wondering if there are newly, relatively newly arisen cost constraints that people are thinking about, or we'll get to it a little bit later, integration points that maybe are a little bit easier in some of these systems that haven't been around quite as long. Um, that they're built to be a little bit more modular. Um there's a few different things I can think of, but I would love to learn a little bit more about it.

Speaker 16:14

Yeah, and I think that now that you say it, I think less than 60% of the respondents on this survey were in hospital nurses. So a lot of them are they work in clinics, they work in um emergency care outpatients, or they work in home health care. So I think the that might um have some swaying of the numbers of what systems they're using.

Speaker 1 16:36

Yeah, exactly. I don't think we have it in our survey, but um it'd be interesting to see if it's skewed to your point. And what the we don't have a penetration of a particular healthcare segment of EHR. We just have it across the board.

Mobile Impact On Care Quality

Speaker 16:51

Yeah, it'd be interesting. I'll I'll go back to click the numbers on that one. That's a good question. All right, the next topic was login approach. And this one was another one that that surprised you and I when we looked at it. But um, in the survey, 52% of the nurses that responded said that they're still using username and password for logging in versus 25% using badge tap. I I know there's products like Imbravada and Blue Fletch and other things that are out there. Um, was it surprising to you that only 25% are using badge tap to log in?

Speaker 1 17:23

Yeah, it was surprising just because you know when you think of healthcare as a non-healthcare person, like a layout person, every time you're in a facility, there's badges everywhere. There's you know, sensors next to doors, they're in every one of the rooms when someone walks in checking in, all that kind of stuff. You would assume that the ubiquity of that usage would extend down to the mobile devices, but it just shows that that that they don't. And so I think maybe that could be some of it is just there isn't a tool that's easy enough to use on the device to facilitate badge tab um that's been adopted enough yet, or maybe there's some differences in badge types between, you know, like I know a door RFID proximity tag is going to be different than what is used on the majority of mobile devices. Um maybe there's a little bit of like a technical debt turnover that needs to happen, but I was surprised by that.

Speaker 18:16

Yeah, and I think this this one coupled with the the next thing that stood out to me was just the the number of logins per day where people are having to do this that login approach. So it was it was a follow-on question. And I think um almost 80% of users are logging in more than three times per day, and then it was over 30% are logging in more than 10 times per day. So it's definitely there are a lot of logins happening. I know based on research we've done in the past, you know, typical username, password will take you 30 to 40 seconds. So if you take that and multiply it times 10 or 20 logins per day, it gets gets very expensive for a lot of these people from a time perspective.

EHR Landscape And Surprises

Speaker 1 18:56

Yeah, it's very expensive from a time perspective. So if you're looking at labor and rev cycles is are extremely important to hospitals. I was talking to someone earlier today who has a nursing informatics background, and that's one of the things she talks about in terms of one of the most important metrics they look at quarter over quarter in hospitals and year over year is the rev cycles within there. And it's not hospitals are making tons of money. That's not the where the rev is coming from. It's hospitals are bleeding money. 45% of hospitals in the US don't make any money at all. So um the fact that you have to spend that much time logging in is concerning from money that could be better used toward either technological improvements, clinical improvements, patient outcomes, things like that. Um it's a concerning number, I feel like.

Speaker 19:48

Yeah. Yeah, and it's uh I was reading there was some some feedback from a CIO on around this question of why don't companies invest in this login problem. And you know, they can he goes on on the flip side, you have a yeah, it's $400,000, $500,000 a year for a login solution that you know reduces that all that time you're spent, or you're buying a new MRI machine for $2 million. So he's having to compete with that you know spend cycle as they go to the board and try to get approval for those types of things. And there feels like they're always gonna go towards the new equipment or machine, even though if it you know, on the grand scheme, you know, some of that software may actually be more beneficial to the nurses and the patients in their care scenario.

Speaker 1 20:34

Yeah, I think there's probably a whole topic with that CIO I would love to talk to you about in terms of you know, with a new piece of machinery like an MRI, the number of appointments you can book into it and the amount of quantifiable um codes that you can submit from an insurance reimbursement perspective versus saving a floor of nurses time on logins would be interesting.

Authentication: Passwords Vs Badge Tap

Speaker 20:57

Yeah, it's probably a lot easier to justify to the insurance companies when you're um putting it that way. Yeah. So the next next topic, and this is another interesting one that stood out to you and me, which is the you know, what new technologies do nurses want, or what do nurses want with technology? And the thing that was highest on the list definitely surprised me. I thought it would be um AI or dictation or other things. And the thing that was highest was better integration between different systems. And as soon as I read it, I got it because they have you know, you have your labs, you have all these monitoring systems, you have communication, you have your EHR. And a lot of these systems are not set up to talk to each other. So you're taking data from one system and putting another. And I I as soon as I read the answer, this just came in, you know, this came in. I think 41% of nurses rank this as their top um technology. I think they want to improve the technology. And it's just to me, it's like, oh, that's I I get it, but I I would never have thought about this before we got the survey results back.

Speaker 1 22:04

I I'm the same I have the same reaction when I saw this. Um it makes a ton of sense. But also you that's I think you you and I weren't thinking of it from that perspective. But yeah, if you have to go to one system to look at an x-ray, another system to look at the last time you talked with that patient, and then another system to see when their next appointment is, that's that's really convoluted.

Time, Revenue Cycles, And Tradeoffs

Speaker 22:30

Yeah, and number number two and number three were I guess they weren't as surprising. Number two was not surprising to me, which is improved uh sorry, number sorry, number three was not, which is improved mobile tablet applications. So can we get better applications? This kind of goes along with uh, you know, apps crash or you know, stuff doesn't isn't tested before we get it, but the the number two, which was advanced AI diagnostic tools, and that came in at 39% of nurses would like to have this. And this to me seems like you talked about this at the top of the discussion. Nurses have a desire and the experience to use advanced tools, and you know, put in these AI tools is definitely something that's that's something that um a lot of hospitals uh maybe slow on. And the nurses definitely want to adopt those.

Speaker 1 23:19

And I think where I've seen a lot of uh conversations around this, a couple areas that were that are interesting to me is from like a dictation perspective and an ambient listening perspective, but then also one that's like directly clinical, um, for lack of a better way of putting it, is in wound care, for example. Um, you can use AI on mobile devices to measure the size and depth of a wound and have that integrated directly into the EHR. Um, and that is a big part of how wound care is tracked, is in terms of size of wounds and and outcomes. So the fact that something like AI can be used for that didn't occur to me until it was mentioned to me yesterday on a call with a hospital.

Speaker 24:03

So I'll move us to our last question, which we want to call out, which was just the the topic of AI. So we had a number of questions asking nurses around their feelings of AI, um, whether they're pro or anti-problems or concerns they had with it. And the question I wanted to articulate here is really just the um, I think the question was regarding AI, you know, how do you feel about it? And we had a number of things. And the the thing that stood out to me is the what was it like 95% of nurses were very positive about AI and would like to have more of it in their hospital. And I think the things they want to use it for, things like dictation, um, doing helping with predictive, um, you know, patient monitoring, and then also like the the care plan follow-ups when you send a patient home, being able to have AI help with those. And all those were ranked very um heavily in the positive side of nurses want to leverage more of that technology to help them with their jobs.

What Nurses Actually Want Next

Speaker 1 25:07

Yeah, I thought it was really interesting as well. I also was surprised that um more than a quarter of nurses indicated they're already using AI um in their day-to-day practice. So I that number was higher than I think. I'd be interested to see that on industry over industry to see where healthcare ranks um outside of, you know, amongst other industries, particularly as ones as large as they are in terms of when you look at the percentage of the economy. Um that was an interesting one to me too.

Speaker 25:37

And I'd also be interested in what percentage of that 26% is uh is shadow IT apps or apps that are not not provided by the um the IT team, but are things that the nurses on the floors are using to actually improve their patient care.

Speaker 1 25:54

Yeah, I've got seven more minutes till I can get the free chat GPT to tell me what to do.

Speaker 26:00

Oh no. All right, so um, like I said, at the top of the call is this is a survey we recently did. We'll be putting together a white paper and compiling it. Um follow along at bluefletch.com if you're interested, uh, or reach out to Lee or myself if you're interested in getting a copy of that white paper when it comes out. I think the big topics, so nurses you know do want mobile devices, they they like them. Um there are some issues around login and supports um that they would love to have in battery life, they'd love to have improved. Um AI capabilities, nurses definitely want more AI. Um, integration with different systems is a uh a big desire to have better integration. And then, you know, I think on the login side, uh I'll throw a picture out there for Blue Fletch. If you're looking for better login for your nurses, definitely reach out to Lee or myself or hit us up at bluefletch.com. We'd love to talk to you. But um, Lee, thank you for joining me on this. And uh anything else you had to throw out there?

Speaker 1 26:57

No, thanks for joining us. The survey ones are always fun. And if anyone listening is going to be at uh Vive or HIMMS coming up at the end of February and beginning of March, um Blue Fletch will be at both of those shows. We'd love to have you stop by and say hello.

Speaker 27:12

Excellent. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you for tuning in to the Frontline Mobility Edge. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for more content every month. If you'd like to learn more about Blue Fletch, check out the link in the description or visit us at bluefletch.com. See you next time.