Xerox creating digital nurse assistant

Xerox is developing a digital nurse assistant that is intended to help reduce the busywork that nurses must spend so much of their time on — documenting takes up more than a third of their time. The system being developed automatically pulls up patient files and allows caregivers to use mobile devices to document work.

The digital nurse assistant  is part of a broader trend of adapting information technology to the healthcare system to make it more efficient and cost-effective. The system relies on a small digital tag that the nurse wears, which recognizes her when she enters a patient’s room. The patient’s information immediately appears on an in-room display along with any specific data that needs attention. For example, if the patient has a particular indicator like blood pressure that needs closer monitoring, that data is immediately highlighted on the display (usually presented in graph form).