Supporting evidence-based practice for nurses through information technologies.

PURPOSE To evaluate the usability of mobile information terminals such as personal digital assistants PDAs or Tablet personal computers to improve access to information resources for nurses and to explore the relationship between PDA or Tablet supported information resources and outcomes BACKGROUND The authors evaluated an initiative of the Nursing Secretariat Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care which provided nurses with PDAs and Tablet PCs to enable Internet access to information resources Nurses had access to drug and medical reference information best practice guidelines BPGs and to abstracts of recent research studies METHOD The authors took place over a 12 month period Diffusion of Innovation theory and the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services PARIHS model guided the selection of variables for study A longitudinal design involving questionnaires was used to evaluate the impact of the mobile technologies on barriers to research utilization perceived quality of care and on nurses job satisfaction The setting was 29 acute care long term care home care and correctional organizations in Ontario Canada The sample consisted of 488 frontline nurses RESULTS Nurses most frequently consulted drug and medical reference information Google and Nursing PLUS Overall nurses were most satisfied with the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario RNAO BPGs and rated the RNAO BPGs as the easiest resource to use Among the PDA and Tablet users there was a significant improvement in research awareness values and in communication of research There was also for the PDA users only a significant improvement over time in perceived quality of care and job satisfaction but primarily in long term care settings IMPLICATIONS It is feasible to provide nurses with access to evidence based practice resources via mobile information technologies to reduce the barriers to research utilization