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Section 3: Supplemental technologies orientation The core technologies support others that can be grouped in three categories based on already familiar functions. Like the core technologies, these are designed to serve the hospital's bottom line at the expense of patients and employees. They help managers control RNs through surveillance, division, routinization, deskilling, and displacement. They also help the hospital or HMO cut corners on patient care and collect higher fees. Any benefit to patients is incidental to these primary functions. III Automating technologies • Computerized provider/physician order entry (CPOE) is used by medical practitioners to communicate diagnostic orders, prescriptions, and instructions for treatment over a computer network to the staff members or departments responsible for filling the orders. • Medication dispensing devices store medications, dispense them in a controlled fashion, and track their dispensing. (This is both an automating and a tracking technology.) • An electronic medication administration record (EMAR) is a bar coding system used to match patients with their medication and check the dosage, the time of administration, and drug allergies and interactions. • An interactive patient system, installed at the bedside, allows two-way communication between the patient and staff, including menu customization and other patient requests, and delivers patient education videos and quizzes, patient satisfaction surveys, entertainment, and Internet service. • Robots are mobile, self-propelled machines that travel through the hospital as couriers transporting supplies and food and do other routine tasks such as administering medication. Some can be operated by an RN or doctor in a remote location, allowing them to visit patients virtually instead of in person and ultimately even perform some surgeries at home. tracking technologies • Bar coding can be used to identify patients, staff, equipment, and supplies. • Radio frequency identification (RFID) uses radio waves to identify people and objects. • A real-time locating system (RTLS) uses wireless communications to track the physical location of patients, staff, and equipment, allowing administrators to analyze work processes and make them more technically efficient, in part by increasing the speed at which they're performed. © Copyright IHSP 2009. All rights reserved. e interactiv Will an sys tem patient pen d s help you with more time ents? you r pati