Jan 8, 2024

Dr. Karlene Kerfoot, Chief Nursing Officer at symplr, points out the challenges nurses and doctors face when dealing with technology in the workplace.  The disparate systems and lack of data integration make it difficult for clinicians to perform necessary duties and have moments that matter: time to provide the kind of care patients require. Karlene highlights the potential for AI and robots to alleviate some of the inefficiencies in the workflow and the need for frontline staff to be part of the decision-making process to ensure advanced technology solutions meet real needs.  

Karlene explains, "We do have to deal with the technology to make it easier for people to work. For example, the nurse manager, when they want a staff and schedule, sometimes they have to go through six to eight disparate systems that don't talk to each other. So they have to go into one system and then out, and another system and out, and another system and out. So, at the end of the day, they're quite fatigued and have a lot of technology burden. They don't have time to do what they're supposed to do, which is look at the quality of work with patients and help new nurses."  

"We have to run those systems by the people who use them because often, when you say to physicians, "Here's a great system." They say, "Well, that's not the way I think. That doesn't work for me." Or if you say to a nurse, "Here's a great system for you." They say, "Well, it doesn't work because we have to do all these workarounds because it doesn't really include everything we want."

"We had a little funeral for all the fax machines and put a big black curtain over them so people couldn't use them, and we said, "It's dead." And so that, in a funny way, sort of forced people to see if they could use the computer and not use paper and not use fax machines." 

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