Wednesday, December 11, 2002

St. David's Healthcare Partnership & Austin Community College Deploy Skyscape PDA-Based Medical References in Advanced Nursing Fellowship Program

St. David's Healthcare Partnership & Austin Community College Deploy Skyscape PDA-Based Medical References in Advanced Nursing Fellowship Program

Armed with Skyscape medical references on their PDAs, nurses at St. David’s HealthCare Partnership in Austin, Texas, are delivering more efficient, effective, and timely care to patients. The Skyscape mobile medical references (www. skyscape. com) are supporting an advanced nursing fellowship program conducted by Austin Community College for the healthcare system.

Austin, TX and Marlborough, MA (PRWEB) March 13, 2006

Armed with Skyscape medical references on their PDAs, nurses at St. David’s HealthCare Partnership in Austin, Texas, are delivering more efficient, effective, and timely care to patients. The Skyscape mobile medical references (www. skyscape. com) are supporting an advanced nursing fellowship program conducted by Austin Community College for the healthcare system.

Program consultant Dr. Susan Smith believes PDAs loaded with mobile medical references are transforming the nursing profession, helping to deliver more efficient and effective patient care.

The institutions received a $2 million U. S. Department of Labor grant as part of the Bush Administration's High Growth Job Training Initiative. About 70 registered nurses participate as fellows in the program, plus clinical coaches serve as expert resources to the fellows.

Under the program, in its second year, the funding is used for the purchase of 120 PDAs for the nurse participants and the clinical coaches.

The nurse participants and their coaches are given Dell PDAs pre-loaded with four popular Skyscape reference titles.

The students are provided instructions on the use of PDAs and how to access the pre-loaded Skyscape nursing reference software, but most participants taught themselves how to use the devices.

“Let’s say someone is questioning a medication, or there is a change in a patient’s condition, or a laboratory result comes back that needs review, the nurse may need to do fast research before calling the physician to tell them what might be happening,” said Smith. “Our PDAs and their Skyscape medical references really facilitate a much quicker reaction time. Plus, it puts the information at the practitioner’s finger tips. The nurse can respond faster to the physician, or someone else, when using the PDA, instead of returning to the nursing station to reference a medical book,” she said.

Skyscape is the leading provider of medical references formatted specially for mobile devices. The four Skyscape references purchased were very familiar to the students and covered a broad scope of nursing requirements. “Taber’s Medical Dictionary is a nationally known reference; Davis’ Drug Guide for Nurses and ABCs of Interpretive Laboratory Data are very popular; and RNFastFacts (Nurse’s Fast Facts: The Only Book You Need for Clinicals, 2nd edition) was used and recommended by another agency,” said Smith. “Also, the content covered the age span and specialty areas of Medical-Surgical, Gerontological Care, Maternal Infant, Pediatric, Mental health, Long Term Care, Home Health Care, Nutrition, and Emergency and Critical Care.”

“The grant is a unique opportunity to try to shorten or measure a nurse’s transition from novice toward expert,” said Smith. “We are trying to shorten that transition period by applying different educational strategies. This is one opportunity to demonstrate the value of hand-held computers and mobile medical references at the bedside,” she said.

About Skyscape

Skyscape, Inc. pioneered in-context integrated medical references on handheld PDAs and continues to offer the largest library of trusted evidence-based decision support tools – more than 300 resources covering 30+ specialties -- for point-of-care use by physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals. More than 475,000 healthcare professionals use Skyscape’s patented smARTlink™ technology for fast and accurate diagnosis, treatment, and prescribing support. Skyscape products are available for Palm OS®, Windows® Mobile Pocket PCs and smartphones, and Windows® powered desktop, laptops, and Tablet PCs. Skyscape is based in Marlborough, MA and is available on the web at www. skyscape. com.

Skyscape and smARTlink are registered trademarks. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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