There are currently thousands of patients in hospitals around the US who are unable to communicate to their nurses or caretakers. These patients are alert and well, but the systems that are used for communication are simply just inefficient and difficult to use. A new application for tables called "Speak for Myself" has been created to help those in need. Rebecca Kozalinski, developed the program after conducting a study also named "Speak for Myself". The study showed that it was clear there were issues of misinterpretations and misunderstanding between patients and their nurses. This would lead to issues in care as the pateients would not be treated properly. The application "Speak for Myself" shows a graphic of the human body and gives the user a scale from 1-10 for level of pain. The user can simply select where the pain is and define the level of pain. The user can also input notes by typing in phrases and helping produces sentences with shortcuts. While the user is entering information about his or her issue, "Speak for Myself" is already predecting possible treatments for the patient. This application has been put into real hospitals and has already proven to imporve the treatments of patients. An example is of "Speak for Myself" in use is that one patient had reported he still had unattended to pain in the back of his throat. With the help of the program the patient was able to recieve the proper treatment and the pain was relieved.
It is important to see that technology is still being improved to help out those who need it. It was clear that there is already a program or system for patients to comunicate with nurses, but to see that people are still trying to improve these systems with technology is something I think is important. I believe that as time goes on it is important to update systems and protcools, esepcially for hospital protocools, as it is important that we do everything we can with technology to improve healthcare.
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