Studies in health technology and informatics
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2009
A pilot study exploring the clinical benefits when using a Mobile Clinical Assistant, the Motion C5 in medical wards.
Hand held computers and point of care devices have been identified as tools that can support more efficient safe care delivery. This paper describes a pilot which evaluates this technology for usage by the nursing and the wider clinical team. ⋯ The findings were reviewed qualitatively, and thematically analysed. The pilot highlighted significant benefits, the support of the delivery safer more effective care to patients in NHS Lothian.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2009
A standard operating protocol (SOP) and minimum data set (MDS) for nursing and medical handover: considerations for flexible standardization in developing electronic tools.
As part of Australia's participation in the World Health Organization, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) is the leading federal government technical agency involved in the area of clinical handover improvement. The ACSQHC has funded a range of handover improvement projects in Australia including one at the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH), Tasmania. The RHH project aims to investigate the potential for generalizable and transferable clinical handover solutions throughout the medical and nursing disciplines. ⋯ It considers the implications of these standardized operating protocols and minimum data sets for developing electronic clinical handover support tools. Significantly, the paper highlights a human-centred design approach that actively involves medical and nursing staff in data collection, analysis, interpretation, and systems design. This approach reveals the dangers of info-centrism when considering electronic tools, as information emerges as the only factor amongst many others that influence the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical handover.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2009
The electronic health record in Austria: physicians' acceptance is influenced by negative emotions.
Negative emotions like anxiety and fear due to a lack of information may cause change barriers and drag physicians' acceptance of the national electronic health record (ELGA) in Austria. Qualitative, problem-centric interviews were conducted with eight physicians. ⋯ They fear unknown changes, increased costs, workload and surveillance without having advantages from using electronic health records in their daily practice. Impartial information campaigns, tailored to the physicians' needs and questions as well as comprehensive cost-benefit analysis could benefit the physicians' opinion of ELGA.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2009
Computer laboratory in medical education for medical students.
Five generations of second year students at the Zagreb University School of Medicine were interviewed through an anonymous questionnaire on their use of personal computers, Internet, computer laboratories and computer-assisted education in general. Results show an advance in students' usage of information and communication technology during the period from 1998/99 to 2002/03. However, their positive opinion about computer laboratory depends on installed capacities: the better the computer laboratory technology, the better the students' acceptance and use of it.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2009
Understanding the impact on intensive care staff workflow due to the introduction of a critical care information system: a mixed methods research methodology.
The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is a complex and dynamic tertiary care environment that requires health care providers to balance many competing tasks and responsibilities. Inefficient and interruption-driven workflow is believed to increase the likelihood of medical errors and, therefore, present a serious risk to patients in the ICU. ⋯ Little objective research, however, has investigated these assertions. This paper reports on the design of a research methodology to explore the impact of a CCIS on the workflow of Respiratory Therapists, Pediatric Intensivists, Nurses, and Unit Clerks in a Pediatric ICU (PICU) and a General Systems ICU (GSICU) in Northern Canada.