THE EFFECT OF POINT OF CARE TECHNOLOGY ON THE QUALITY OF PATIENT CARE.
Contributors: George Mason University.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 142
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Computer Science.; Psychology, General.
Description: New technologies are bringing dramatic changes and reshaping nursing practice. It is thought that new technologies like computers at the patient's bedside or point of care technology (PCT) improve nursing productivity, documentation, patient satisfaction and decrease costs. To ensure that this emerging technology is effective, it must be evaluated. The Health Care Technology Assessment (HCTA) framework was selected to evaluate PCT in this descriptive and quasi-experimental study. Safety, cost, effectiveness and social impact are the evaluation elements of the HCTA framework.

The objectives of the study were two-fold: (1) to examine the impact of PCT on the quality of patient care and (2) to describe the social consequences on the patient.

A sample of 90 patients from five nursing units in three hospitals were obtained for the study. Half of the patients had computers at their bedside. The nursing units were examined over time with a pretest and posttest unit and two comparison and experiment units. The main null hypothesis was: There is no difference in the quality of patient care on nursing units with and without PCT. This hypothesis was rejected. While patients were generally very satisfied with their nursing care on all units, when controlling for time and the presence of the computer, patients who did not have PCT were more satisfied than patients in rooms with PCT. Furthermore, the study found that the charts of patients with PCT were less compliant to documentation standards.

Conversely, a smaller sample of these same patients expressed positive responses to the bedside computer and technologies in their room and this concurred with the current literature.

The benefits of the technology were found to outweigh the costs of PCT from the literature review. There was not enough literature to draw conclusions about the safety of PCT.

In summary, the quality of patient care did not improve with the implementation of PCT in this study. However, patient satisfaction with nursing care was high, and patients were positive about bedside computer technology. Future studies should focus on the implementation process, the placement and types of the computers within the patient room, and the overall goal of the technology. This study points out the need for PCT to be a part of a larger plan for patient centered care where all processes of delivery of care are directed toward the patient, not just nursing documentation.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-02, Section: B, page: 0742.

Thesis (PH.D.)--GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY, 1993.

School code: 0883.