Be Smart About Smartphone Use
Mitigate the legal risks of cell phones in your facility.
M
ost of us can't imag-
ine spending a day
without our pre-
cious smartphones, but they
pose serious challenges to a
surgical facility in the form of
disruptions, distractions and
even risk of infection. Whether
those phones are in the hands
of your surgeons and staff or
your patients and their accom-
panying friends and family,
you need to be able to answer
one important question: Do
the benefits of allowing uncon-
ditional smartphone use in
your facility outweigh the
risks? Let's take a closer look.
• Surgeons and staff. At
times, having surgeons and
staffers on their phones in or
near the OR is justified — when another patient is in intensive care or
there are serious post-op complications, for example — but those
instances should be few and far between. An OR nurse taking a brief
moment to text her child or an anesthesiologist passing the downtime
by updating his Facebook status might seem like innocent indul-
gences, but they can distract from the primary task of caring for the
patient. Even a momentary distraction could result in the administra-
1 4 4 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 7
Legal Update
William A. Miller, JD
• GOOD QUESTION Do surgeons really need their phones in or near
the OR?