Nurses' Use of Personal Smartphone Technology in the Workplace: Scoping Review.

Nurses view personal smartphones as an efficient method to gather patient care information and to communicate with the health care team. This review highlights knowledge gaps regarding nurses' personal device use and information safety, patient care outcomes, and communication practices. This scoping review facilitates critical reflection on patient care practices within the digital context. We infer that nurses' use of their personal devices to communicate among the health care team may demonstrate a technological "work-around" meant to reconcile health system demands for cost-efficiency with efforts to provide quality patient care. The current breadth of research is focused on acute care, with little research focus in other practices settings. Research initiatives are needed to explore personal device use across the continuum of health care settings.