A SAFER SCREEN Equip your anesthesia providers with distraction-free devices.

BUSINESS, NOT PERSONAL Outsmart Their Smart Phones
The smart phone might be the most dangerous and distracting tool in the OR today. We've seen enough examples of anesthesia providers who were surfing the Web and texting during cases to know that this a major safety issue in surgery. Witness the Seattle anesthesiologist accused of sending hundreds of sexually explicit text messages and X-rated "selfies" while on duty (tinyurl.com/m9b898f) and the Dallas anesthesiologist who admitted he was too busy surfing the Internet and posting on Facebook to notice the patient's low blood-oxygen levels until 15 or 20 minutes after she'd turned blue (tinyurl.com/kl3d9l5).

Pamela Ertel, RN, BSN, CNOR, RNFA, CASC, FABC, administrative director of the Reading Hospital SurgiCenter at Spring Ridge in Wyomissing, Pa., has attacked the distracted doctoring problem head on.

• Distraction-free tablets. She issued individualized tablet computers to her CRNAs, letting each choose which clinical software and apps they'd need to do their jobs (read: no Facebook, no text messaging). "Then we bought the devices and pre-loaded them for just those uses," says Ms. Ertel. "That way we're sure that the anesthesia provider looking at a little screen during a case is consulting a drug interaction guide or other medical reference, not sending a text message or checking social media sites."
• Abstinence challenge. Ms. Ertel issued a challenge to her OR staff: Can you go 1 month on the job without your gadgets? They've also established a no-cell-phones-in-patient-care-areas policy, "which I've enforced and reprimanded offenders over," says Ms. Ertel.

— David Bernard