Just ask Christine Gambrel, RN, BSN, the administrator of the
Surgery Center of Rockville (Md.), and this month's cover model.
Guess what Ms. Gambrel did on her 53
rd
birthday last month? She
took the day off to celebrate, but she also took a minute to app-rove a
supply order on her Samsung.
Ms. Gambrel Venmoes, too. She also uses apps for banking, movies,
music, shopping and social media. And like a growing number of you,
she's taking advantage of the numerous apps designed for surgical
professionals. We take a look at some useful apps, most free, in
"There's An App For That" on page 18.
Ms. Gambrel's center uses online preadmission, the time-saving pro-
gram that lets patients fill out their health histories at their conven-
ience and at their computer. Ms. Gambrel figures she's charged $5.60
for every patient that fills out an online preassessment.
"But it saves a nurse at least 30 minutes a patient," says Ms.
Gambrel.
The program also sends patients automated text reminders before
surgery and a few days after surgery sends a text asking them to take
the satisfaction survey sent by mail.
Before I get carried away with my technological app-titude, it's only
fair to point out that I had a major glitch last month with surveymon-
key, our online survey software we use often to question our readers
for articles. I prepared a survey about surgical apps for this issue and
sent it to a few thousand readers. Zero responses! Hmmm. I sent it
again to a new list of reader emails. Nothing. Turns out the "logic" I
applied to the survey backfired, causing the responses to a key ques-
tion — What's your favorite surgical app? — not to register. I was
app-alled that I could Venmo, but I couldn't surveymonkey.
OSM
Editor's Page
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