Handheld computer systems support Hospital at Night teams
Published: 22 April 2009
Here's news of the successful implementation of an innovative project by MARTIN CARBERRY, HECT Project Manager in NHS Lanarkshire, and MARILYN ROSE MCGEE-LENNON, a senior research fellow at the University of Glasgow's Department of Computing Science.
In response to the European Working Time Directive, NHS Lanarkshire has implemented a handheld computer system (HHCS) to support Hospital Emergency Care Teams (HECT) providing out-of-hours emergency care in three district general hospitals.
The HECT consists of two senior critical care nurses, 27 HECT nurses and three senior house officers.
The HECT nurse function includes advanced clinical roles such as the application of non-invasive ventilation, nurse prescribing, arterial puncture for blood gas analysis and physical examination skills.
Because HECT nurses require detailed data 24/7 in all three hospital locations, a handheld computer system was implemented to assist patient management, provide access to evidence based guidelines and patient information, and facilitate advanced clinical audit and Hospital at Night handover.
A research study investigated how the HHCS system was used by the HECT nurses in practice and how well it was accepted within the teams. The evaluation was carried out over a four-week period using questionnaires and follow-up interviews with the HECT nursing users.
'Significant value'
The study showed that the handheld computer system has been successfully implemented to support Hospital at Night teams. In addition it was found that the system was perceived by the team as having significant value in particular to facilitate hospital handover and clinical audit without having unacceptable impact on time or perceived workload.
Further research in mobile health informatics is required including the need to investigate the appropriateness of data entry at the bedside in out-of-hours emergency situations and/or improved methods of data entry in these circumstances. The time required for data entry using HHCSs needs to be reduced, which may promote wider acceptance of HHCSs in health care by busy professionals.
This type of system could be adopted by other UK hospitals to support service delivery and help ensure safe, effective patient care. Since completion of the study, 10 further hospitals in NHS Scotland have adopted the system to support Hospital at Night teams.
The full research report is available on request - contact martin.carberry@laht.scot.nhs.uk or mcgeemr@dcs.gla.ac.uk