Having just gone thru anesthesia, I wouldn't consider a 2.4% rate of error acceptable. As to failure to communicate, anesthiologists are not walking around. They are in the operating room. Why can't they use wired phones? Barry _____________________________________________________________________
Barry Wellman Professor of Sociology NetLab Director wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 To network is to live; to live is to network _____________________________________________________________________ On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 11:51:30 EST > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [mobile-society] More Cell Phone Use, Less Medical Error, > Study Shows. > > Hi all - Thought some of you might find this interesting. > > Hope all is well with you, > Scott Campbell > > "_More Cell Phone Use, Less Medical Error, Study Shows._ > (http://find.galegroup.com/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prod > Id=EAIM&docId=A141756624&source=gale&userGroupName=ksstate_ukans&version=1.0) > " _eWeek_ > (http://find.galegroup.com/itx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=EAIM&docId=A141756624&source=gale&userGroupNa > me=ksstate_ukans&version=1.0) (Feb 1, 2006): NA. Expanded Academic ASAP. > Thomson Gale. University of Kansas Libraries. 10 March 2006 > > > Full Text:COPYRIGHT 2006 Ziff Davis Media Inc. > > A new study suggests that despite a small risk of cell phones interfering > with medical equipment, their use by medical personnel actually lowered the > overall error rate due to adequate communication. > Hospital policies prohibiting cell phone use may no longer be relevant. > The electronic interference from mobile telephone has been a problem in the > past because of older telemetry equipment and analog cell phones. > But now the technology has changed, making it less of a risk for interfering > with hospital equipment. > "The new digital cell phones used much higher power and operate at a > different frequency," said Dr. Keith Ruskin, associate professor at Yale > School of > Medicine. > "The small risks of electromagnetic interference between mobile telephones > and medical devices should be weighed against the potential benefits of > improved communication." > To read more about government efforts to prevent medical errors, click here > [link omitted]. > Ruskin recently reported the results of a study investigating whether cell > phone use by medical personnel has an impact on patient safety, published in > the February issue of the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia. > It was based on 4,018 survey responses from attendees at the 2003 meeting of > the American Society of Anesthesiologists. > The study found that although their was a small rate (2.4 percent) of > electronic interference with life support devices such as ventilators, > intravenous > infusion pumps, and monitoring equipment, that rate was much lower than the > 14.9 percent risk of observed medical error or injury due to a delay in > communication. > Of those anesthesiologists who participated in the survey, 65 percent > reported using pagers as their primary mode of communications and 17 percent > said > they used cellular telephones. > Forty percent of respondents who use pagers reported delays in > communications, compared to 31 percent of cellular telephone users. > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mobile-society" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mobile-society -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
