Improving Patient Safety and Patient-Provider Communication.

Patients were selected by convenience, and nurses identified who could or could not access the nurse call system. The study excluded patients with pre-existing cognitive or language impairments and patients whose admitting diagnosis involved a newly acquired cognitive or language impairment. Surveys from the full-access and no-access groups were collected before the Voxello technology was implemented, so the control groups were not observed under the same hospital conditions as the noddle group. The outcomes were patient and nurse perceptions on a survey, not measured communication accuracy, nurse response time, or adverse events. Nurses reported less positive views about the amount of training information they received, and the paper notes difficulty maintaining consistent support across shifts and handoffs. The paper reports that none of the noddle patients experienced a preventable adverse event only as an anecdote.

One author, Richard R. Hurtig, is the Chief Scientific Officer of Voxello, the company that developed the technology being evaluated. The other listed authors reported no relevant financial or nonfinancial interests.

Do not conclude that the Voxello system reduces preventable adverse events or objectively improves communication. The study measured patient and nurse perceptions after device use, and the noddle group still rated access and communication less favorably than patients who could use the standard nurse call system.