flow. The team found that providers remain focused on the patient
while requesting information or calling out commands.
She says members of the hospital's surgical team have
expressed interest in being able to access clinical
information or call up MRI and CT images in the
middle of the case without diverting their atten-
tion from the patient or breaking sterile tech-
nique to click a computer's mouse. With a smart
speaker in the room, a member of the team
would theoretically be able to call out a com-
mand to have images displayed on a monitor in
the room or request that the speaker relay perti-
nent info from the patient's medical record.
"We're also exploring the potential of using
smart speakers to verbally document events
throughout a case such as the time of the first
incision," says Ms. Lindenauer.
For example, they noticed a member of
Boston Children's surgical team would shout out
the time of the first incision to the circulating
nurse, who'd jot the time down on a whiteboard
for later entry into the surgical record. If a smart
speaker was in the room, the time would be
automatically documented as soon as the team
member called it out.
Smart speakers could even be used to prompt
the surgical team through each element of the
safety checklist during the time out and automati-
cally document that each step was completed. Ms.
Lindenauer is exploring ways to leverage smart speak-
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